Monday, June 29: 2Corinthians 7- Purify yourselves.

This chapter opens with a direct comment about our calling to purity, holiness and faithfulness. It is here that I spent time refreshing my soul.

Therefore, since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God (1).

Purify ourselves… myself… from everything that contaminates body and spirit.

God’s Word gives me this charge… purify myself, wash myself, cleanse myself.

When I wash my hands, I actively scrub off the dirt. By analogy, if I am going to purify myself, I must actively scrub off all things that contaminate. I take an active part in this. I must identify contaminants and then find the cleanser to wash them away.

When I work in my woodshop, normal soap won’t do, I need something with a degreaser as well as cleanser. Sexual contaminants takes one kind of cleansing, pride takes another and so on.

All cleansing requires identification of the sin area and then confession. But beyond that, purification of some kinds of contaminants takes a commitment to avoid certain activities or places, others take disciplines of the heart more so than life. God calls us to engage in whatever we find necessary to purify our lives… all of it, body and spirit, mind and heart, all of it.

Lord, I cannot do this without the indwelling work of the Holy Spirit, revealing and convicting me of my sins and sin patterns, and then giving me ‘the where with all’ to attack these areas in the power of the Spirit and replacing them with godly Jesus-honoring behaviors, actions, thoughts and desires. O, Lord, help me, guide me, strengthen me to be Yours, totally and wholly Yours. Through Jesus, I pray. Amen.

 

No comments:

Post a Comment