July 28, 2013

Purity: July 26, 2013



TODAY’S WORD FOR FRIDAY JULY 26, 2013.

PURITY

DEFINITION:

Freedom from anything that pollutes or contaminates; uncontaminated; without evil; guiltless; undefiled.

SCRIPTURE:

But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield and without hypocrisy. James 3:17.

He who has clean hands and a pure heart; he shall receive blessing from the Lord. Psalm 24:4-5

I stir up your pure minds by way of a reminder that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken by the holy prophets.
II Peter 3:1-2.

Holding the mystery (revealed truth) of our faith with a pure conscience.
I Timothy 3:9.

KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE:

People today are very concerned about how they look. It is mind boggling to think of all the money, time and effort people spend to make themselves look good. People try everything including cosmetics, beauty treatments, exercise, gyms, spas, diets and when all else fails, plastic surgery.

All this is just to improve their outward appearance. What we should be more concerned about is what we are like on the inside because although we look on the outward appearance, the Lord looks at what is on the inside. “The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance but the Lord looks at the heart” (I Samuel 16:7).

Believers should spend their time and effort on making sure they are pure and uncontaminated on the inside. God wants us to be pure. When we have accepted Jesus as our Savior, He wants us to “clean up our act” and reject our old sinful ways.

II Timothy 2:15 says that, “everyone who names the name of the Lord must turn from wickedness.” There is no inherent purity in any of us because we are all sinners. To be pure we must go to the only source of purity. That source is God.

James tells us, in the verse above, that God’s wisdom is first pure and then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield and without hypocrisy.

Purity requires a change in the believers’ heart. When our hearts are pure it will be evident because we will strive to live honest and moral lives that honor the Lord our God. If our hearts are pure our hands will be clean and uncontaminated by evil deeds. The believer must have clean hands and a pure heart. (The verse from Psalms that we have put above)

A pure heart will lead us to pure thoughts. Peter writes in II Peter (above) to believers desiring to stir up our minds to remember and follow the words given to us in God's Holy Word. If we obey God's Word we will keep our minds pure.

God created us with a conscience to hold us accountable. A pure conscience enables us to discern right from wrong. When we sin we will no longer have a pure conscience and we will feel the guilt of our sin. Living a pure life by our faith as a believer is something we should always strive for.

When we were raising our children we often talked about the need of purity in our talk, our walk and our actions. We need to always be on our guard because the devil will always do his best to set unassuming traps for us to fall into to cause us to sin and contaminate the purity God wants in our heart, our mind and our conscience.

LEARNING:

Our memory verse for this week is found in Hebrews 10:36.

For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may have received what was promised.

PRAYER:

Help me to live a pure life today, honoring You with my thoughts and my actions.


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