Practice 5: Purity
I love the scene in Minority Report after Tom Cruise gets his eyes replaced and wakes up to get some food. He will not have the use of his eyes for some 8 hours, but the skeevy doctor (also the Russian cosmonaut from Armegeddon. I can’t help it—my brain just likes to make those connections) has left a sandwich and milk for Tom’s character in the fridge so he can eat while he recovers… next to a month-old version of the sandwich and milk. So John Anderton stumbles to the fridge and takes a huge bite of a the rotten, moldy sandwich and, after spitting it out, tries to wash the taste away with the bad milk.
Often this is how the first stumble back into our stolen identities looks. The enemy places a healthy desire next to a rotten action—sex is not bad, but sex outside of marriage is not God’s future for us. Drinking is not condemned in scripture, but being drunk is. Looking at a girl is not wrong, but picturing her sexually is a start towards pornography.
Why does God call us into purity? The same reason he allowed sin to enter the world. Without it we would know nothing of divine love, mercy, grace, or forgiveness, and we cannot define our true identity without these things.
As you practice purity, know this: it is not the end result that is God’s goal. You will never “reach purity”. It is the journey towards it that is the goal. Each step is a new goal leading to the next and each one uncovers more of God and us.
Read 1 Corinthians 6:12-20
Ponder for a moment the second part of verse 19—”You do not belong to yourself.”
Our identity is actually God’s. He spent eternity designing it and gave it to us. We should not only discover it, but also maintain it. That’s what the practice of purity is all about.
I love the scene in Minority Report after Tom Cruise gets his eyes replaced and wakes up to get some food. He will not have the use of his eyes for some 8 hours, but the skeevy doctor (also the Russian cosmonaut from Armegeddon. I can’t help it—my brain just likes to make those connections) has left a sandwich and milk for Tom’s character in the fridge so he can eat while he recovers… next to a month-old version of the sandwich and milk. So John Anderton stumbles to the fridge and takes a huge bite of a the rotten, moldy sandwich and, after spitting it out, tries to wash the taste away with the bad milk.
Often this is how the first stumble back into our stolen identities looks. The enemy places a healthy desire next to a rotten action—sex is not bad, but sex outside of marriage is not God’s future for us. Drinking is not condemned in scripture, but being drunk is. Looking at a girl is not wrong, but picturing her sexually is a start towards pornography.
Why does God call us into purity? The same reason he allowed sin to enter the world. Without it we would know nothing of divine love, mercy, grace, or forgiveness, and we cannot define our true identity without these things.
As you practice purity, know this: it is not the end result that is God’s goal. You will never “reach purity”. It is the journey towards it that is the goal. Each step is a new goal leading to the next and each one uncovers more of God and us.
Read 1 Corinthians 6:12-20
Ponder for a moment the second part of verse 19—”You do not belong to yourself.”
Our identity is actually God’s. He spent eternity designing it and gave it to us. We should not only discover it, but also maintain it. That’s what the practice of purity is all about.
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