Charles Wesley once prayed to God, "Make me and keep me pure within." I feel like God has drastically shown me what it means to live a pure life for Him. There are so many elements of my life that have been altered or completely obliterated for the sake of pursuing purity in my daily life. Those people who've known me before and after my salvation could tell you that something is definitely different. Although I constantly struggle with purifying my life, I know that He continues to show me areas in my life that need refining. I'm always learning what it means to live purely. At any given time there is at least one thing that I feel God is showing me that is obstructing a healthier Walk with Him.
As I move through and process what living purely for God looks like, I am stricken with the struggle many young women face in keeping their lives pure. I'm definitely one of them too. And I'm reminded that God has called us to be pure and to live lives that are glorifying to Him. But how the heck are we supposed to do this in a world that really has no understanding of purity?
Purity in this case doesn't have to be just sexual. Elizabeth Elliot says, “Purity means freedom from contamination, from anything that would spoil the taste or the pleasure…It means cleanness, clearness—no additives, nothing artificial—in other words, 'all natural' in the sense in which the Original Designer designed it to be.” Of course, since we live in this world, it is not possible to escape sin and be completely blameless. However, I do believe that it is something we should still aim towards! Merely admitting defeat to our sinfulness and not trying to aim towards holiness is just giving us more justification for continuing to sin. Purifying your life means cleaning it out, and allowing God to do it!
The awesome thing is that we are not left alone to figure out what this means. How do we know what the characteristics of living a pure life are? I sure don't have the answer. But God does, and He's left us His Word and His Spirit to convict us and teach us about what it means to live purely.
As I write this, I'm hit with the desire to dig into Scripture and see what He says about how to live purely. Maybe my next post will be a continuum of this one. I know this might sound obvious, but really reading the Scriptures and thinking about them and actually applying them to your life is really the best way to live. I admittedly don't do it enough. So, this summer, I want to intentionally seek out intimacy and purity in my relationship with God through Scripture and prayer. Hopefully, I'll share my discoveries here.
“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” - Romans 12:2 NLT
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