Choosing Purity

The topic of purity is sometimes one we don’t relish. Why? Because it calls for self-examination and possible changes. Just as it’s extremely difficult to stay clean when you walk through a dusty field or mud puddle, it’s also difficult to maintain purity in our walk through the wilderness of this earthly life.

But that’s exactly the kind of life God calls us to. Throughout the book of Leviticus as God taught His people about His holiness, He repeatedly told the young nation of Israel to learn to discern between the clean and the unclean. More than once He said: “Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.”

Our holiness is important to God.

So far in our study of Numbers, we’ve read about keeping God at the center of our lives, the importance of working together, the sacredness of our work for the Lord, and protecting God’s holiness. Today, in Numbers 5, we’ll discuss the importance of purity.

So how do we learn to discern between the clean and the unclean? How can we guard against defiling ourselves and the holiness to which God has called us? Here are a few thoughts:

Stand Strong in Your Convictions

But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment… ~John 16:7-8

God’s Spirit resides in the hearts of believers. He is our teacher and intercessor. He also convicts us when we sin. But it is all too easy to be led astray by our own sinful natures and desires. We must stand strong like Daniel when confronted with the choice to eat unclean-to-him delicacies from the king’s table or what God had commanded His people.

Transformation, Not Conformation

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. ~Romans 12:1-2

Worldly messages bombard us from every direction–television, movies, radio, the internet, advertisements, magazines, books, video games–the list could go on and on. It’s easy to grow desensitized through the constant bombardment. But those things stack up in our hearts, and before we know it, we’ve somehow moved away from the Lord and gotten our feet dirty in the process.

That is why the message of Romans 12 is so critical. Yes, it does require sacrifice on our part. A choice. But the result? A transformed mind, able to prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. My response? Yes, please, a double helping!

Guarding Our Hearts

Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life. ~Proverbs 4:23

Have you ever tasted pure and crystal clear water straight from an underground spring? There’s nothing like it–tasty, cool and refreshing–to quench our thirst. But if the head of that spring becomes polluted with trash, it destroys the water and the ability of people to drink from it safely.

That is the visual image from Proverbs 4:23. Our hearts are the headwaters of the Holy Spirit in our lives. If we, through personal choice or personal compromise, allow those pure waters to become polluted, it will most definitely affect our lives.

That is how we keep lives pure and undefiled from living in this old world–by guarding our hearts above all else, choosing to stand on our convictions like Daniel, and not conforming to the world’s standards, instead allowing Jesus to transform us from the inside out.

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