I was laying in the bed resting and thinking about being in God’s presence and how I wanted to be pure to be in God’s presence. I looked up the word pure and the below definition says:
Pure: Free from anything of a different inferior or contaminating thing; from extraneous matter.
God wants us to love him in a pure manner being unmixed with anything that would cause us to be impure or in genuine. He wants us to be free from idols. Idols of lust, selfishness, self-worship, greed, murder, or anything that defiles. These things separate us from God’s presence, but purity draws us in [i].
Like a husband and wife who are faithful to one another. The purity of their relationship draws them to one another; instead of to other things or people that would stand in between. For the couple’s purity; they are rewarded with one another. Without purity between the two of them, tension is bought into the relationship that drives a wedge in between the two of them.
God’s love draws us to purity. When we love God, we keep his commandments [ii]. We willfully choose to be a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God [iii], and we reap the benefits of being rewarded with God’s presence. We do not entertain the things competing for our affection that would make us impure in order to be able to realize God’s affection for us[iv].
God’s love for us is constant, but if we spend time worshiping things allowing ourselves to become impure, we will begin to lose sight of God’s love for us and grow to love the things that we have chosen to make idols in our lives. If we want God, and want to realize his affection for us, we need to pray to God to help us to be pure unmixed with anything that defiles. God will always love us, but it is hard to see when we are in bondage to our flesh or sin due to fighting with condemnation.
“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Romans 8:1
People who are in Christ Jesus who walk after their flesh will always deal with some type of condemnation because walking in the flesh and in sin is an open door to condemnation, but the person who is in Christ who makes a choice to no longer walk after the flesh, but after the Spirit will not have to worry about condemnation. Purity is a choice. Once we make that choice to obey God; He provides us with the grace and wisdom to do so.
Any distraction that Satan can throw at us to attempt to separate us from God he will, but we have a choice in the matter we can choose to depend on the Lord’s strength and grace to walk in purity or we can just give in to our flesh.
A few things that help with purity are meditating on God’s word constantly, hanging around other believers who are fervent about pleasing God and walking in purity, prayer and fasting, and submitting ourselves to the leading of the Holy-Spirit when he warns us about certain relationships, books, television, movies, boundaries that need to be set or any such thing. Just like we would guard the purity in our marriage relationship with our spouse; we should guard the purity in our personal lives with God.
Questions to meditate on: How important is purity to you? Do you see God’s presence as a reward for purity why or why not? Do we value God’s presence like we should or do we take God for granted expecting him to put up with anything? If we were/are in covenant with a spouse would we put up with unacceptable behavior from them? Why do we expect God to put up with unacceptable behavior from us? Do we respect and honor God in sincerity or are we just playing a game deceived by our current sins[v]?
[i] But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. Isaiah 59:2
[ii] “If you love me, obey my commandments. John 14:15
[iii] I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Romans 12:1
[iv] Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: Hebrews 12:14
[v] But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. Hebrews 3:13
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