deeper, deeper, deeper
I don’t know if it matters or not, but I have realized that the superficial glossing of purity is not enough. No. I must delve. How deep? As deep as God urges, as deeply as Jesus pulls, as deeply as the Holy Spirit leads.
I will admit that it was a rather fleeting thought at the Cleansing Stream Retreat, though it was one that I was willing to verbalize. As excited as I am regarding the calling upon my life, I am not doing nearly enough. Now, don’t misunderstand me here. I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, feeling unworthy and am not, therefore, trying to ‘earn’ my badge of goodness by doing things. No. Rather, it was the revelation of how deeply impurity goes and how I do not have any concept as to how wounded people are by this and I cannot fathom the depravity of the enemy in enslaving humanity in sexual bondages.
Herein lies the quandary, for I surely am not called to research sexual acts of impurity in order to learn about them. This brings to mind the verse asking if we should continue to sin so that grace would abound. Why introduce myself to things of that nature? That is not what God is seeking from me.
Then what is He seeking from me? I wonder at this even as I sit here and think about how different I am today from Thursday of last week. Hmmm. I feel it deep inside, though I look the same. Here’s the deal: I am called to purity and to teach purity and I have been called for a very long time.
Well, I now understand the stagnation that had once been so frustrating. God was holding me in a waiting pattern until this moment, when I could actually understand that this call, what I once thought effortless, is actually a high calling and is actually extremely important and a great deal more intense than I had originally fathomed. It is a great responsibility. Hmmm. I don’t think words can capture it, but let me see.
Can you imagine something that permeates your life so much that it is like your heartbeat, steady, regular, and often ignored? Sometimes, a pain will course through and you will recall what brought it and you will listen closely to your heart. Sometimes exercise brings rapidness to the heartbeat and you lift your hand to your throat and feel it beneath your fingertips, pressing against the flesh. These moments brings your heartbeat to vivid focus. That is how sin is.
We choose not to notice how sin is affecting our lives until the pain comes, until the rapidness of its consequences are beating upon our flesh. Then we see it, then we begin to look for ways out. But, most times, the ways out are only putting a bandage over a gushing vein. We find the cover up, like the fig leaves of Adam and Eve, and hope that the beast will lay in rest for a little while…at least until we’re feeling better.
Purity is the same thing, even for me. I guess most of us think of purity as sexual, which is mainly is, but God thinks of purity in a much grander scheme of things. Whereas our hearts are appearing to be the problem, the real issue may lie somewhere else, causing our hearts to manifest in the way they do. I am, of course, only referring to physical ailments right now, for we all know that the Word of God states that it is from our hearts that foul things rise and temptation comes from. God sees through the heart and through the mess into the cause, the root, of our ailments. It is like the x-ray that the doctors use to determine why your heart is acting up…only a thousand times better.
Jesus sees why impurity resides in us. I guess the word I am looking for is ungodliness. Anything in our lives that is unholy, that we excuse. Take a minute to be honest with yourself and think about all the practices, thoughts, attitudes, etc. that you excuse, anything you have to ‘defend’. Do you ever notice that there are no interventions for those that refuse to drink or do drugs, for those that choose to save themselves for marriage? When I tell someone that I don’t drink, I never have to offer an explanation, I never have to defend myself. When I tell someone I’m waiting for marriage, I never have to argue the points of why.
Take a good, solid look at yourself and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal any areas of your life that you are allowing ungodliness, impurity, to reign. Surrender and let God have those areas, let Him bring about changes in the very center, the very core, of your soul, and let your spirit, which was brought to life through Christ Jesus, breathe free in the purity of true love and relationship with Jesus Christ, without veils and without locked doors preventing Jesus full access.
May 5, 2011
