Inner Purity

10-29-2009
Inner Purity

God desires for us to be made pure. Baptism in symbolic of the cleansing of our sins, thus making us pure. When we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior, the Bible says, out with the old and in with the new, as we are a new creation. If we truly live for Christ we should live a life of purity. That doesn’t mean we are going to be perfect, but what it should mean is we strive for sanctification (to be Christ like), and when we make mistakes we genuinely ask for forgiveness. Everything we do and say should have pure intentions. Jesus desires for us to have inner purity.

Matthew 15:1-20 says the following:

Clean and Unclean

1Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2"Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don't wash their hands before they eat!"
3Jesus replied, "And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4For God said, 'Honor your father and mother’ and 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.'5But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,' 6he is not to 'honor his father' with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: 8" 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. 9They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.'"
10Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen and understand. 11What goes into a man's mouth does not make him 'unclean,' but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him 'unclean.' "
12Then the disciples came to him and asked, "Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?"
13He replied, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. 14Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit."
15Peter said, "Explain the parable to us."
16"Are you still so dull?" Jesus asked them. 17"Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.' 19For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20These are what make a man 'unclean'; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him 'unclean.' "

When our hearts are in the right place, our worship is meaningful, but to simply do religious traditions is meaningless. Showing up to church doesn’t make you a Christian, just like showing up to Burger King doesn’t make me a Burger! It’s about the condition of our heart and our motives. Do we act and think with purity. The devil knows a lot of God and the Bible, but he doesn’t KNOW God. Anyone can memorize scripture and sit at church with Bibles in hand on Sundays. God wants a commitment from us. Check your spiritual growth and purity, and make sure your heart is in the right place. Pray that you will find self assurance in what God thinks of you, and not what man thinks of you. God knows all and sees all, so let’s give him our all!

Application:
1. Read Matthew 15:1-20
2. Check your purity