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We will always have to deal with the presence of sin in the world and within ourselves in this life, even after we have received Christ through faith. But that act of faith also means that God Himself (in the person of the Holy Spirit) is now living within us, for the purpose of helping us to become progressively more like Jesus throughout our earthly lives. I also find it helpful to remember that when God sees someone who has been saved through faith, he does not see the individual's old sin nature, but the perfect righteousness of Christ that has now been imputed to that person because of their faith. We no longer have to depend upon our own imperfect obedience to gain God's favor. Our responsibility as Christians because of this mercy that God has shown us is to avoid willful sin in our lives (again, with the help of the Holy Spirit), to confess those sins that we do still commit and to receive God's forgiveness for them; and to strive to be continually more like Christ, looking forward to the full accomplishment of that objective when we are eternally in God's presence.
We are all born into sin; in order to have a pure heart, we must die to ourselves, put away our "old man" and allow Christ full authority over our will and our lives, no longer allowing our free will to dictate our lives. Instead, we must examine ourselves and ask, are our actions/words/thoughts Christ-like? Once we make that decision, turning our lives fully over to Christ, only then can we truly have a pure heart.
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