Psalm 24:3-4
Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to an idol. Who has not sworn deceitfully.

Clean hands = the deeds and actions I take. The work of my hands, good and bad.
Pure heart = who I truly am. The real me. The hands only follow where the heart is headed. Choices actually are born in the heart. MY mind simply follows where my heart is headed.

So, in order to see God...
In order to follow God....
In order to claim to be a believer....
A change of heart must take place.
Here is where the "POWER greater than me" comes into play.
This POWER, who I believe is Jesus, must be in the business of not only empowering me in this new endeavor, but also have the ability to direct and guide me. If such does exist, the directing and guiding I mean, then I must be humble enough to set my own personal desires and wants aside in order to embrace what I'm being taught.

Checking out some Scripture, I see this entire process taking shape.
In Psalm 23 I read about God's interaction:
V2.- He makes me
V3. - He leads me / He restores me/ and once more, He leads me.
V4. - talks about going through some hairy places and situations...in spite of this, we read where "YOU ARE WITH ME".

Go over to Psalm 25, and you'll read where King David begins the Psalm by saying that he completely trust in God to sustain him and watch over him. This is followed by some requests to God.
V4. - Show me  /   teach me   /  Lead me.
Why such requests?
David writes, "For You are the God of my salvation. On You I wait all the day."
David realized that God is a teaching God, and that if He is teaching, then David needs to be about the business of learning.
David truly believed that this interaction of being taught and applying the lesson was an ongoing, everyday thing. In other words, school was in session every day, all day.

Maybe this is something we need to consider.
Some seem to think that school is only in session on Sunday mornings (Or in our case, Saturday night). No! Salvation is an ongoing lesson. While salvation is a free gift from God, there is upkeep required on our part.

If indeed God is "showing and teaching and leading"...then doesn't it make sense that I have to be "Watching, learning and following"? I think maybe yes.
What good is claiming to be a follower of Jesus if we never follow.
Such would make us "Fans" of the Almighty God.
We bought the T-shirt...
We saw the movie and cheered when Jesus rose from the dead....
And we have the book, but we don't really read it, much less study it.
Yep...
Fans of the Almighty.
I don't really want to live like that.
I want to chase Him.
I want to fall deeper in love with Him.
I want His word to be my word.
I guess I'm just kind of crazy like that.

God on you...
mbb