Reaching For Joy // Ever-Present PeaceSample

A New Way to Look at Purity

Into darkness, My Son shines light. Into desperation, My Son brings hope. Purity—to be pure—to pursue a life uninhibited by sin, is to trust in the glory of My Son and the life of Holy Spirit within you.

You are pure. The moment you fell in love with My Son, the moment you committed to follow Him, you entered into a state of purity.

Purity is your true state. Untarnished, unblemished. Without sin. All wiped away. All healed. All redeemed.

Purity is relationship with Me without interference of sin.

Jesus is the mediator, the light shining upon and illuminating all darkness.

The flame of purity is lit in you. You carry it. It burns within you.

Purity is hope that does not fade, despite your failings, despite how you fall.

I make all things pure again. For My presence in you is more powerful than you can comprehend. (And what does that matter? Comprehension is overrated.) Knowing Me, being in communion with Me, this is your sanctuary. This is where and how you are restored. This state of purity, your relationship with Me, is Home. This is the place where you are Home.

Be pure. Be true. Be the son, the daughter, you are meant to be.

Be dissatisfied with distractions, things that get in the way of relationship with Me.

Be impatient in accepting sin. Work with Me in studying your heart so distraction from Me, separation from Me, no longer remains.

Let My love blaze in you so your heart grows more deeply in love with Me. Stay close. I purify you. I purify you. My Son makes you clean. Loves make you clean.

I am love, and I am in you. In Me, you are love. So, love, and be pure, and be bold, and be confident in the purity of My love for you. Washed clean. You are fully you (now).

Exercise:

Let’s hear those words again . . . “The flame of purity is lit . . . in you. You carry it. It burns within you . . . despite your failings, despite how you fall.”

And then we heard these words: “Stay close. I purify you. I purify you. My Son makes you clean.”

Wow . . . It’s a bit much to take, isn’t it? Jesus does the hard work. All we have to do is to believe and repent. But most of us have done that already. So, my friend . . . that means we are pure, now. We . . . are . . . pure. Not because of what we’ve done, but because Jesus’ light illuminates and eliminates the darkness within us.

It’s all a bit difficult to comprehend. In a world where the laws of cause and effect and justice and personal responsibility reign supreme, it would make much more sense if it were 100% up to us to purify our lives, to get ourselves shaped up.

It’s just too good to be true, isn’t it? It’s too amazing. I mean, we’re pure, now? Even after everything we’ve done? Even after everything we do?

Well, you’re right. It doesn’t make sense. But maybe it doesn’t have to. Because listen again to what God says about the things He does making sense to us: He asks, “What does that matter?” Our “comprehension,” He says, “is overrated.”

So . . . maybe the best thing we can do in the face of Jesus’ crazy, doesn’t-make-sense act of love—exchanging His righteousness for our sin—is to simply respond with something that also doesn’t make sense and is equally crazy. Maybe the best thing we can do is simply accept the mystery and wonder of it all and simply say, okay. Maybe the best thing we can do is to hear the Good News, release our cynicism, skepticism, and our need to comprehend—and just accept and embrace it. And then begin to live in it—even though it doesn’t make sense and might never.

So let’s try this. Wherever you are, whether you’re in your car or at home, whether you’re at work or out walking the dog, whatever you’re doing now, I want you to say this out loud if you can. Or say it in your mind, if that’s the best you can do right now. Say, “I am pure.”

I know it’s crazy. But say it like you mean it.

Say, “I am righteous.”

Say, “My sin is removed ‘as far as the east is from the west’” (ESV, Psalm 103:12 ).

Say, “I am new. I am washed clean. My sin is washed away.”

Jesus makes us pure. And He also enables us to live like it. For just as we cannot make ourselves pure, we cannot live that way without His help, without His Spirit in us, without His grace.

So, let’s give Him permission to help us. Let’s give Him permission to continue working in our lives and in our hearts, to help us walk more and more in our true identities.

Jesus, you take my sin away. All of it. You make me pure. You make me new. You do what I could never do on my own. So, I say . . . okay. It doesn’t make sense to me, but it doesn’t have to. I accept it, in my heart. And I give You permission to search that heart. It’s yours. Do a new work in it. Do a new work in me. Whatever you’d like. I trust you. I trust that I am pure. So, do whatever You need to do in me to help me live that way. Amen.