Purity is one of God’s attributes, and concerns the necessity, and power of living a consistent and repeatable life of being unmixed and undiluted with the world… a life of our being the same in private as we are in public … consistent and repeatable.
To quote Hannah Tatum Whitall Smith, who lived from 1832 to 1911, “Some Christians seem to think all the requirements of a holy life are met when they are active and successful in Christian work. Because they do so much for the Lord in public, they feel a liberty to be ugly and ungodly in private. But this is not the sort of Christian life I am depicting. If we are to walk as Christ walked, it must be in private as well as in public, at home as well as abroad; and it must be every hour all day long, and not at stated periods or on certain fixed occasions. We must be just as Christ-like to others as we are to our minister, and just as upright in our home as we are in our prayer meeting.”
Maintaining a pious face only where others can see us is called a lie, or being an actor merely impersonating a believer in Christ.
She continued saying, “An angry, worrying, gloomy, doubting, complaining, demanding, selfish, cruel, hard-hearted, self-indulgent, sharp-tongued or bitter-spirited Christian may be very earnest in his or her work, and may have an honorable place in the church; but they are not Christ-like Christians. They know nothing of the realities of true Christianity, no matter how loud their professions may be.”
We should not just be a distant light in the darkness in people’s lives, we should be the soft light of grace up close and personal. And if we’re going to let our lights shine up close and personal, let us allow the Holy Spirit to resolve our worldly hearts of sourness, bad language which reflects our heart, fault finding, ignorance, and a downcast countenance. If we will let Him, God will fill us with aspects of courtesy, insight, grace, and salt. We are not monotony on two legs you know, we possess the very life and light of the universe in our hearts.
Our external conversation is born from our internal conversation, and i think we need to ask the Lord to redeem our internal narrative, which is where our conflict resolution begins. All our wars and conflicts where we are directly involved, have all started with ourselves before they oozed out to the world around us. Within everyone there is a conversation going on, we may not be aware of it, we may not want to admit it or admit to the contents of that internal narrative, but it is there. The Hebrew word for conversation draws a picture of a well worn path, or a path which is worn from constantly being walked on, and when in groups, it draws a picture of marching together, or, a conversation, like people who are going somewhere together. Together, meaning, on the same road, going in the same direction, on the same side of the road, at the same speed. “Together” … do you get it.
1 Peter 1:15-16 “…but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all conduct, because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy.”
i believe it is true, the Lord is interested in what we do and the details of our lives, but more than any of that, He is interested in us, our character … God’s interest in our how and why is always far and above what we do.
Of course the Lord has a destiny and a service outlined for you, but, and this may seem difficult for some ambitious believers to appreciate, God will burn your ministry to the ground in order to retain His relationship with you. Jesus did not die for your ministry but for you. You are more important to Him than your ministry; you are more important to Him than the great plans you’ve got; you are more important to Him than the flowers, good book reviews, public notice, titles, positions, Facebook likes, or your ambitious achievements. Nothing, nothing, nothing can separate you from the Love of God and He is confident in His ability to love you back from the brink of destruction.
Revelation 4:8, “And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” Wow! So, day and night they never cease saying “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” i think back to all the times i’ve quoted this during worship and praise, and only now am i thinking to myself, do i have anything even close to an understanding of what i’m saying? Don’t get me wrong, it’s the truth and it’s right, but my question is about myself and do i understand? Hopefully by my questioning myself, you will be inspired to also question yourself about similar matters.
God’s holiness. What does it mean when we say God is holy?
You know, over the years i’ve heard myself say a lot of stuff that, often, i’m not too sure just exactly what i meant. Yea, i sounded real spiritual to myself and others, but when i tried to explain some of my high-sounding, fancy theology, i sometimes, if not often, fell short. Do you know what you believe and why? And i don’t mean parroting someone else. i mean we do the work to pull apart our theology and get a clue as to how we came to our conclusions.
One time, a young man and i, the young man being a new believer, were painting a house. i was holding his paint bucket as he leaned out to paint the bottom of a chimney, three stories up. As i watched him brush paint on, i saw some of the sky blue paint drip onto the shiny new chimney flashing. i pulled a rag out of my pocket and handed it to him, requesting he wipe the brush drips off. He twisted his head around and said, “Why? Nobody is going to see it.” In my all knowingness, i drew myself up into a religious pose and smoothly said, “It doesn’t matter if anyone else sees it, we see it. Where’s your integrity?” He whipped his head around so fast i thought his eyes might slide out of their sockets, and while giving me a quizzical look, he asked, “What’s integrity?” Then i heard the Lord ask me, “Yea big boy, what’s integrity?” i realized in a flash how many christian-eee, spiritual words and phrases i used without comprehension. Many times, i had no real clue as to what i really meant, or it totally lacked practicality, no one could relate to it, and walked away feeling misunderstood, not realizing it wasn’t them who didn’t get me, it was me not being clear in my own mind.
As an example, when you’re troubled and you go talk to an elder maybe. Their advice is, “Just give it to God.” Don’t get me wrong, it really is good counsel. Over the years i think i have learned to “Just give it to God”, but think about that advice…oh yea, it sounds great, but how do i give a problem which i can’t hardly describe, to someone i can’t see, and then “let go” of something i can’t hold. Uh-huh. Often easier said than done. Though it is truly right counsel, how do you explain to someone what that means and how to do it?
So, in our case this evening, we’re speaking of personal holiness, more specifically, purity, how we put that in motion, and what exactly do we mean?
When purity is part of our character because it’s part of God’s character, there flows in us a naturally occurring shine, a high polish oozes from our pores and we are made bright. And you’ve gotta know, we don’t get that high shine from doing the rules, it comes from being in love. In the Hebrew spelling of the word purity, or personal holiness, it is obvious, with a bit of what i call, digging and sifting, to see that purity encloses honor for with purity comes honor, and humility comes before honor. Inversely, with loss of purity, is loss of honor. With our choosing and possession of purity there is stainlessness, cleanliness, and innocence. These may sound like high sounding words, but i’m describing Jesus, AND, wonderfully so, i’m describing Christ in us. 1 Peter 1:15 “But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do.”
Jesus is manifested in brightness and purity, He is unsullied by moral wrong, and is undiluted and unmixed with this fallen world. Jesus is our living example of purity. Ephesians 2:2 reads that this world operates according to the prince of the power of the air, the devil’s very life expression is one of binding and being bound which goes on forever. Purity in Christ breaks the bonds of sin and the anchor of darkness – like the sun rising, it shatters discord and confusion from the east, breaking the grip of night which is a twist on the light.
God created this world we live in, and in it’s new born state, it was created with the vertical and horizontal lines of divinity, a divine grid of reference. Within the divine IS purity, which is why the offense of sin is such an affront to personal holiness. His rightness of character, God’s personal holiness in and of itself is liberating.
Within the Hebrew word for purity, twice there occurs the idea of choice: the choice to be free or not; the choice to return or not; the choice between greatness and degradation. In the same spelling there is God’s guaranteed redemption for anyone who wants to return to the Lord and enter the courts of the King as a heroic penitent. Whether or not to employ personal holiness, ahhh, that is a choice.
Purity, and personal holiness is a vacuum in the church today. It is easy to simply go the way of the world – watching movies we know we shouldn’t let in our eyes, letting our conversation easily degrade, allowing corrupt communications out of our mouths and into our ears which wound our conscience and inspire our loss for the relish of righteous things. There is such thing as shame in the sense of humility in a good way, shame being the currency of honor – as in purity and righteous shame. BUT … It is easy to dress and act in ways which stupefy and discredit us, that is shame in a bad way, and has nothing to do with humility, other than to be humiliated. i say anyone who has no shame in the daylight, has been handled too much in the dark, making our conscience to be like bruised fruit.
Do we prefer personal holiness, or do we concede and capitulate to the world and sin because we don’t care if God sees us or maybe because we don’t believe God sees us? We shouldn’t practice personal holiness just to please God, but because we want to be like Jesus, and that we have a higher vision than simply not getting caught and being a pleaser. Again, we don’t shine because we keep the rules, we shine because we’re in love with Jesus.
The Lord said we can possess personal holiness through Christ. God called us to holiness in Christ Jesus and did not call us to capitulate in the face of the call of hell, which is to be as impure and unholy as we want as long as it makes us happy. In Christ, we can do this! Romans 8:37 “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
The desire and yearning for the Lord is something He plants in our hearts, and is one of the foundational corners of our passion and loyalty to God. Purity is never grim, stiff and cold. Within our church culture there is an idea of purity which is born out of a false sense of legalistic morality that is erroneously called godliness. Being legalistically moral is not purity – it is not so much about conduct as it is our heart posture, or how we lean in our heart towards God. And i don’t mean we should just sit back and be irresponsible for our behavior and actions … we must pursue personal holiness, for it is key to overcoming darkness.
Practice, practice, practice is imperative. Practicing our personal holiness, puts feet to our commitment and applies the teaching of Jesus. It is in our daily practice where the skill of being pure is developed. As long as the idea lingers in our head that if things go wrong, we’ll just revert to our old behavior, as long as going back is an option in our mind, we are still in danger of acting like Demas. 2 Timothy 4:10, “…for Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world…” For me, going back is not an option. And how about you?
We were not born with a natural inclination to purity … in fact, with the exception of Christ who was sinless, every man, woman, and child which breaths and has breathed air was born into a fallen state. Romans3:23-24 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Purity, personal holiness, the practice of Godliness is gotten by our living a focused relationship with Jesus. It requires loyalty, reading God’s word, being consistent and repeatable, and making our outward face match our inward face. It requires prayer, prayer literally meaning, “i cannot but God can.” Practice means we put God’s word, and the teaching of the Holy Spirit into action. If you’re in a situation that is going south, practice your ability to choose righteousness and walk away. Your so called, friends, may deride you later for walking away while they were getting loaded, but i can assure you, anytime we stand up and do the right thing for the sake of holiness, darkness is driven backwards. 1 Timothy 4:8, “For physical training is of some value, but holiness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.”
It’s not that we, of ourselves, are able to attain purity, but through Christ, for it is a gift from God. 2 Corinthians 3:5, “Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God.”
Here’s an “Oh by the way” to consider, although the power and implementation for purity and a Godly life comes through Jesus, the responsibility for developing and exhibiting that character is ours. i’m by no means saying any of us can live a pure and godly life on our own, i’m simply saying we must practice God’s word and live it out in our everyday, work-a-day world. We choose, and true, there are many things we do not choose, like our hair color, where we were born, who our parents were, etc, etc. But the development and implementation of purity and godliness, that is something which is within our power to choose to do.
As was mentioned earlier, within the Hebrew word for purity, there is the idea of the right to choose, and choosing godliness is a learned thing. i was born with all the faculties i needed in order to do wrong, to choose poorly, and to be an excellent and consummate failure. But once i met Jesus, and He radically changed my life, i had to learn to choose differently. Let us learn to choose more wisely and make better choices. Ephesians 4:22-24, “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”
Listen, don’t be surprised if temptation comes knocking at your door. God has a way of allowing us to be in situations which exercise our character. If we are not increasing in godly character, we are going backwards, for in the spiritual life nothing stands still.
In a book by Jerry Bridges, “The Practice of Godliness”, he says that conduct produces character, and character produces conduct. Character also determines actions. What we do, we become, who we are, is we do. Conduct is always feeding character, and character is also always feeding conduct.
Friends, you can do this by the power and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He was chastised for our peace, He was wounded for our transgressions, and by His stripes we are healed. Do you have a vision to loose the captives and break the chains of chaos which bind people in darkness? Start with godly character. It begins with you, in your heart, in submission and obedience to Christ. Let Jesus develop your character. i never said it was comfortable or pleasant, but in the long run, the development of your purity, your personal holiness in Christ breaks the bonds of sin and the anchor of darkness … like the sun rising, it shatters discord and confusion from the east, breaking the grip of darkness in the lives of others. Think about it.
The promises of God toward the truly humble are breathtaking! If you think living a life of purity and holiness is impossible, remember Matthew 19:26, “Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
The Lord is the administrator and enabler of the power in those who have faith to be holy as He is holy. He promises to be with us, to cherish and honor us, to give us mercy and grace beyond the vanishing point for new beginnings, and to lift us up making us strong, firm and steadfast in His name.
i’m Social Porter and this has been Outposts.
Purity is one of God’s attributes, and concerns the necessity, consistency, and power of living a consistent and repeatable life of personal holiness…being the same in private as we are in public … consistent and repeatable. Hebrews 12:14 “Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.” Take His yoke upon your shoulders, relax and breath, pray for your neighbors this week, and above all, know that Jesus loves you and will never forget you or leave you behind. Amen!