Friend of the King

Proverbs 22:11

¹¹ He that loveth pureness of heart, for the grace of his lips the king shall be his friend.
¹¹ One who loves a pure heart and who speaks with grace will have the king for a friend. (NIV)

God does not change

People say the Old Testament is no longer necessary, because we have the New Testament with the Gospels and the Apostolic letters.

However, passages like this merely demonstrate that God has not changed over the millennia or between the Testaments. In fact, it was Jesus who said this during His Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:

⁶ Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
⁷ Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
⁸ Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

Essentially, if we love the goodness found in people and seek it within ourselves, and if we show grace and mercy to others, we will see God face to face one day.

We just need to remember where this purity and grace comes from:

¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵ I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. ¹⁷ This is my command: Love each other.
John 15:14-17, NIV

Loving Lord, create in us a pure heart and fill us with Your grace, that we may love purity in and show grace to all others.