Wow! This seems like a very limited, moralistic view of this statement of Jesus'. I always thought of "pure in heart" as much broader than just sexual purity. I believe it speaks about all that is in one's heart including a desire to know God and respond to his grace.

Everyday we are exposed to an overflow of sewage from every corner of the media. Whether it's film, television, advertising or the news we get a steady stream of sexually loaded content. Adultery, pre-marital sex, homosexuality, child abuse, drug and alcohol glorification and on and on. What once would have shocked almost everyone, is now the daily fare. "Purity of Heart" is only possible if you put on the full armor of Christ. I have been called a prude, naive, and judgemental for refusing to accept "that times have changed". When I was young I used to swear that I would never talk about "how much better things used to be". Now here I am saying it and meaning it.

Grant, America has asked for what is going on in this country, Christians included. When we sat down and let the ungodly take the upper hand, we have gotten what we have asked for. Say what you want but when the Godly believers were in charge of this country, we were respected by other countries, and the ungodly commited their sins behind closed doors and had respect for others.
Things were better back then.

If you have guilt feelings about the way you live your life - this message refers to sexual immorality - then you will find ways to make the message seem "narrow-minded", but if you hear this message the way it is meant to be heard, then you will search your soul to see if it applies to you. In today's world, it is so difficult to stand against sexual immorality because the "guilty" people don't want to change anything and they want everyone else to accept it. I think it's called PC (politically correct)>

"Adultery, pre-marital sex, homosexuality, child abuse, drug and alcohol glorification and on and on."

Some of this is good, some of this is bad...personally, I love pre-marital sex, (and thank god I had it!), but child abuse? Not a big fan.

Homosexuality? I personally don't induldge, but I have no issues with people who do. It is simply not my concern.

1. "Godly people", as you put it, will never be in charge of your country. You had that once with Mr. GWB, and look how that turned out for you. As a country, you should be proud of what you have - You have Jefferson, Thomas Paine, the First Amendment, the Virginia Statute - you have the seperation of church and state. Why? Because everyone knows "church" is nuts and should never be left to run anything.

And if you want to talk about sexual morality. Who is committing the most vial and disgusting sexual acts today? Christians are, i.e. the Roman Catholic Church - need I say more?

2. Religious people have zero right to dictate what consenting adults do with one another. It is, actually, none of your business, and not your right to complain about. As an atheist, I've spent some of my life in the company of religious people - at weddings, funerals, bar-mitzvahs, confirmations, and so forth, and each time I respect their religious customs, no matter how silly I think they are. All we atheists ask for is a polite reciprocal condition - which is that you in turn leave us alone. This, I am afraid, religion is incapable of doing.

JCO - If you want to be "left alone", why do you keep coming here? It's certainly not to leave us alone.

Grant, ha! I'm getting you guys back for 2,000 years of meddling in other peoples' business ;)

How childish....but honest. Now folks, do you really want to continue to respond to JCO?

Grant, there is no need to respond to such comments as JCO has made today. Our only appropriate response is to pray to God as we are instructed to do by God's Holy Word.

Grant,
All I have for our resident atheist is "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema. Maranatha.
Have a great day Brother.

I'd totally stop posting and go away, if you'd just admit a) people's sexual lives are not your business, and they are not bad people for engaging in what makes them happy, and b)America is not a Christian country, as much as you wish it was.

You are trying to reframe my comments for today. a) I was not talking about what people do in private. I was talking about the overt dissemenation of sexually loaded information on a massive scale on a wide front from media to grade school teaching. Teaching that such behavior is acceptable, unavoidable and even good is harmful. It is the business of all members of society. The results are harmful. There are a lot of things that "make you happy" that are not good for you or society. The are not just the dirivative thinking of one religious group. b)America may be more diverse than ever before, but I would argue that it is still a country that was largely built on Christian values. The sepation of church and state was meant to protect the church from the state, not the other way around. That protection is rigorously protected for all faiths other than Christianity it seems to me. Nonetheless, Christian can bring their values to the bear at the polls and in their service. They can work with citizens of other faiths to protect "shared values", which are many. (for instance, if anything, Muslim Americans are more offended by the sexually loaded content of which I speak)

Grant, you are so right. One specific example of what you are getting at is how some homosexual activists want to see homosexuals allowed to be leaders in the Boy Scouts, to set themselves up as examples for the boys. This is when someone's private sexual choices spill over into the lives of other people and it is necessary to say something to protect the boundaries of what is presented to children as a clean, straight and healthy way of life. This is just one example of the many ways that our society has been bombarded in the war against Christian standards.

Every single state preamble of the United States says something like "grateful to Almighty God for the privilege of choosing our own form of government". Sounds like a Christian country to me. Also, the reason we do not leave lost people alone is because we do not want them to live a life without knowing Jesus Christ and then spend eternity in hell. I am not sure why you do not leave us alone.

In Canada, in our national anthem (There's the answer to your question Jerry), we have the line "God keep our land, glorious and free." However, because of such a line exists, no Canadian in their right mind would suggest that we are a Christian country, for we are not a Christian country. We are mainly a country of religious moderates and non-believers.

Yet in your country, because such vague references do exist, 62% of Americans consider America to be a “Christian nation”. But so what? Is that important? It is literally a meaningless statement. The US Constitution omits all mention of God, let alone of Jesus. Sure, the Declaration of Independence does mention a "creator", but it doesn’t say who exactly this creator is, nor does it say that this is the kind of creator that intervenes, or gets upset if you are a homosexual or not. The designers of these documents were deists, not theists.

And it is true to say that America is full of Christians, but again so what? Many that I’ve met in America are full of doubt and scepticism and now, 16% of Americans say they have no faith of any kind, which is double that from what it was just a decade ago was. Fact: Atheists are the fastest growing group of people in the United States.

Grant, when you state that the separation of church and state was meant to protect the church from the state and not the other way around — flat out wrong again I’m afraid. When the Danbury Baptists wrote to President Thomas Jefferson expressing concern over the lack in their state constitution of explicit protection of religious liberty, and against government establishment of religion, who were they afraid of? Who were they looking for protection from? The Congregationalists! These people didn’t consider them to be “real Americans:

As a result, Thomas Jefferson called his new laws a "wall of separation" between church and state.

The 1st Amendment to your Constitution forbids bringing religion into government. AND, Thomas Jefferson had his own version of the New Testament, where he cuts out all reference to the divinity of Jesus. So, Thomas Jefferson was not a theist. Ben Franklin was an atheist, and George Washington would not take communion. Your founding fathers were secularists, if you don’t know that, you don’t know anything, and they probably wouldn't have lunch with most of you, let alone agree with you.

I’m not sure why I have to explain this to Americans, when I am not even one…

So now you are witnessing the fall of Christianity in America. The 62% who “think” (to use the term loosely) America is Christian, is now down from 69% from the tail end of the Bush presidency. Also, another recent poll suggests that 68% of Americans believe that religions is losing its influence in American life.

So, the religious right is losing ground. Why? People are smarters today, people are better educated today, and they have much more access to more information, thus they now hear arguments based on reason, rather than fear of the unknown, which is the greatest selling point of all religions – you know, "trust us, don't think – we have all the answers…"

But, if you want to keep peddling ancient nonsense in support of your bigotry, which does not deserve a reponse, go right ahead. But don't tell me that these kinds of silly beliefs belong in government, or in the business of legislating for a pluralistic society in the modern world. Unfortunately, theocratic bullying exists still today in the 3rd world, but here in the Western world it belongs in the infancy of our species.

This is getting way off the message, but I am not "flat out wrong". The exchange of correspondence by Jefferson to which you refer has been debated by constitutional scholars as to his intent. At most it is only his view of how the Contitution might be interpreted in one situation. The wording of the First Ammendment is direct, clear and unambiguous. Reading more into it than is there is something that is at the heart of a great battle about the role of the Supreme Court in our country today, as I'm sure you are aware. May God continue to bless Canada.

Grant,
May I admonish you as a brother in Christ to not let JCO bait you. He can pull anything out of context as he so often does, especially the Word of God. We all need to return this daily devotion back into a place where we can praise the Lord and share our testimonies to the awesome power of God. Like I keep saying, God is drawing these proclaimed atheists and I believe they will be coming to know the Lord. So we need to love them, not argue. Remember 2 Timothy 2:24. But the servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but be gentle and apt to teach.... Read the rest and let ;your heart soak it in.

Unfortunately I've certainly been guilty of carrying on these discussions with our resident atheists as well. I have to agree with Gail though, that there becomes a time when there is no point of having such skewed discussions anymore. I'm reminded of a saying my dad used to quote often, which was -"You can't beat the devil at his own game." In other words their intent is to get us all riled up and keep having these long drawn out arguments that never get anywhere. I will continue to pray for them , but like Gail am going to try to ignore comments as long as they are either negative or off topic. Again I've been as guilty as anyone so I'm certainly not pointing fingers at anyone at all. In fact, I'm talking and reminding myself to just let their comments roll down my back from here on out. Take care and God bless everyone

I wasn't going to comment on this devotion, as I didn't feel I had anything substantive to add, however I do want to point out that most of the founding fathers were deists rather Christian. Jefferson thought Jesus was a wise teacher but he actually physically cut the miracle stories out of the Gospels with a razor b/c they were so ludicrous.

Also Thomas Paine (author of Common Sense)- who Mormon Glenn Beck loves to celebrate- was an atheist.

This is not a Christian country by law and that is a good thing. If it were possible to be Christian (simply b/c majority are Christian) then it would be possible to be a Muslim Country or a Hindu country or a Sikh country or whatever and that is not a desirable state of affairs.

Such a beautiful promise from Christ is Matt. 5:8 "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." There's no greater motivation to try to live not only free from sexual impurity, but also to live a pure and spotless life as much as possible in every way that pleases God. A life lived in this manner can bring nothing but good things to all involved. God bless