Psalms 24:1-10: in context

This psalm begins with God's ownership of everything: the earth is the LORD's, and all it contains, the world and those who dwell in it, for he founded it. And then it asks a searching question: who may ascend the hill of the LORD, and who may stand in his holy place? The answer: the one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to what is false or sworn deceitfully. Such a one receives blessing from the LORD. The psalm ends by calling the gates to lift up their heads, that the King of glory may come in.

The question at the center, who may ascend the hill of the LORD, is about who may come into God's presence, and the answer joins two things: clean hands and a pure heart. Clean hands speak of right action, conduct that is not stained by wrongdoing; a pure heart speaks of a right inner life, motives and desires that are not corrupt. The two go together, and it is worth noticing that neither alone is enough. Clean hands without a pure heart is the outward righteousness that Jesus condemned in the Pharisees, right actions over a corrupt heart. A pure heart without clean hands is a claimed inner devotion that never shows in how we actually live. To draw near to God, the psalm says, requires both: the outward and the inward aligned, right action flowing from a right heart, the hands and the heart both clean. This is a high standard, higher than any of us fully meets; and the psalm knows it, adding that the one who draws near receives blessing and righteousness from the God of his salvation, a righteousness given, not merely achieved. We cannot manufacture clean hands and a pure heart on our own; but the God who requires them also gives, in Christ, the cleansing that makes us fit to ascend. Still the standard stands as the shape of what drawing near to God requires: not merely outward correctness, nor merely inward feeling, but the integrity of clean hands and a pure heart together, the whole self, action and motive, aligned toward God.

Do I seek before God the integrity of both clean hands and a pure heart, right action flowing from a right inner life, rather than settling for outward correctness over a corrupt heart or a claimed inner devotion that never shows in how I live, and do I look to God for the cleansing that makes me fit to draw near?