TODAY’S WORD FOR THURSDAY FEBRUARY 11, 2016.
PURITY
Freedom from anything that pollutes or contaminates, uncontaminated; without evil, guiltless; undefiled.
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.
Many people today are concerned as to how they look from the outside. People try everything to improve their looks including cosmetics, beauty treatments, exercise, gyms, spas, diets and when all else fails, plastic surgery. All of this just to improve their outward appearance.
What we should be more concerned about is our inward appearance. Although we look at the outward appearance, the Lord looks at what is on the inside. I Samuel 16:7 reminds us, “The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance but the Lord looks at the heart.”
Believers need to spend more of their time and effort on making sure they are pure and uncontaminated on the inside. God wants us to be pure. It is not wrong to want to look at improving how we look on the outside, but our point is that we do not want to overlook what God wants us to do about the inside.
There is no inherent purity in any of us because we are all sinners. II Timothy 2:19 reminds us, “Everyone who names the name of the Lord must turn from wickedness.” To be pure we must go to the only source of purity and that is God. We are to seek His wisdom.
James tells us that God’s wisdom is first pure and then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield and without hypocrisy. Purity requires a change in our sinful hearts. When our hearts are pure it will be evident because we will strive in all we do to be honest and upright, peaceable and kind, following Jesus’ example.
And if our hearts are pure our hands will be clean and uncontaminated by evil deeds. The verse from Psalms above confirms this thought.
A pure heart will lead us to pure thoughts and a pure mind leads to obedience. Peter wrote in his letter to believers (I PETER 3:1-2) that to keep our heart and minds pure we must remember the words of the scripture as written by the holy prophets. Knowing God’s Word and obeying it will keep us pure because it makes us aware of our sins.
We need to constantly remind ourselves the need of purity in our lives in the way we walk, talk and act. We need to be always on our guard because the devil will do his very best to set unassuming traps for us to fall into to cause us to sin and contaminate the purity that God wants and puts into our heart, mind and conscience.
Our memory verse for this week is found in Isaiah 1:18.
Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.
Help me to live a pure life today, honoring You with my thoughts, my deeds and my actions.
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