What do you imagine when you hear the word purity? Do the word abstinence and envisioning girls wearing long skirts pop into your mind? That does for many people. However, purity is so much more than just abstaining from sex and it is not just for women. Although that is a great start, it is also living our lives pleasing unto the Lord. It is the way we think, the way we dress, and even the way we act even when we think no one is looking even though God sees everything that we do. There are people who may dress “modestly” but are still not living a pure life. The word “Purity” is defined as being
“freedom from anything that debases [reduce in quality or value], contaminates, pollutes” (dictionary.com).
Is there anything in your life that is polluting you?
Even some small things that we may think is nothing such as lying, gossiping, stealing, being jealous, telling someone off, or pushing God aside can pollute our lives. As my pastor always quotes from the Song of Solomon 2:15, “It’s the small foxes that destroy the vines.”
When we are polluted by those “small foxes” it does not also affect us but it can also contaminate others around us. There are people who are looking at our lives whether we think about or not and they do want to see a difference. There are too many counterfeit Christians out there, and I do not know about you, guys, but I do not want to be a fake Chrisitan. When we say that we are “Christians” there should be a difference. However, if we are doing the same things that everyone is doing there we are just debasing how people view the Body of Christ.
And let me get one thing straight–we are not perfect. I can testify to that, but that should not be an excuse to do wrong on purpose. There is always something we all can work on so that we can become more like Christ. That is the beauty of being a Christian because God gives us chance after chance for us to get things right and to also become better. We should be like the psalmist David when he asks God in Psalms 51:10 to,
“Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”
I love this verse because that is my heart’s cry for God to clean me from the inside out. We cannot purify ourselves, but we need God’s help to become who He is calling us to be. In the Message Bible, it says, “Soak me in your laundry and I’ll come out clean,
scrub me and I’ll have a snow-white life.” It displays that it is a continuous
journey for us to become more like God and for Him to change us.
As Christians, we should not think we are more holy or better than anyone else but to be more like Jesus. When people begin looking at us walking down school hallways, on our jobs, in the grocery store, or anywhere we go they should not see us…but God in us. His love, His mercy, His grace, His power in our lives. That is how lives are changed. Not by what we preach, but by life we live if we walk by what we preach.
However, how can we live a pure life? Well, Psalms 119:9 tells us,
“How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your Word.”
We have to ensure that we are in tune with God by reading God’s Word. His Word has a solution for every situation that we may be dealing with. How will we know how to live the way God wants us to if we are not reading His Word.
When we begin studying the Bible it is then that our minds begin to become renewed or transformed. In Romans 12:2 (NLT) it says,
“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”
This verse displays us that we have to allow God to remodel the way we think. It is easy to just follow what everyone does because it seems acceptable by societal standards or because it seems easy. Many of the times we don’t realize that is actually hurting and separating us from God. Yet, when we allow God to change our minds through His Word, we can finally see what His will is for us which is always perfect for us even if we cannot see it at the moment.
It may seem difficult at first, but we have to make a conscious decision that we will follow God’s way instead of our own. Many people scorn purity and just think it is just about sex, but it is so much more. It is a lifestyle, a beautiful and freeing way of living,
The world is looking at us, what are we going to show them?