Thursday, August 9, 2012

Purity of Heart

God calls us to live holy and pure lives. Many today reject the idea of holiness or purity, perhaps because they relate it to people in their lives who appeared hypocritical in the way they struggled with sin. There is much to be said about being authentically present to others about the trials of daily life including spiritual struggles, but the proper response should not be to reject the idea of purity and holiness. God does call us into deeper relationship with him, and this "going into the deep" will always include letting go of the ways of the world. We tend to let go of these things bit by bit and not all at once (and are sometimes frightened by those willing to let go completely). We will never experience the fullness that God has in store for us while we are enjoying raunchy sex scenes in movies or gratuitous violence. Rather than make a decision today to swear off all violence and sex in entertainment, for some it might be best to resolve to make little steps like trying not to curse, or avoiding certain curse words altogether (for others it may be time to lay off the rated R movies). The idea is to not give up on the idea that we can achieve success in our quest for purity or holiness, but continue to move towards it and God's grace will do the rest. God's working in our lives makes us holy. In a future post I'll talk about how God used my wife to ween me off of violent movies. Blessings to all,

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