Consider Purity

Folks, in this blog, I’ll be focusing on something that I think is absolutely critical to our faith in Christ…..And that is purity……..

Also in this blog, I won’t drown you in a bunch of scripture….mainly because I want to talk from my heart, be open and real with you, and hopefully to encourage you that the Lord and you can deal with any impurity that comes into your life……..

I firmly believe that impurity has a great deal to with the rot and sin that is in society today……..Because we have regarded things in our lives that we shouldn’t, this has caused us to miss God’s will in our lives, and to live lives of mediocrity……

But what is purity anyhow? One definition of purity is the condition of being pure, being free of foreign admixture or deleterious matter…..Just like pure water is free of any sediments….it’s clear, clean if you will…..

Another definition is the state of being free from sin or moral wrong

Both definitions are good, but it’s the second that I want to roll with…..being free from sin or moral wrong…….

We all know, or from previous blogs, have been convicted as to why we need to be absolved from sin……..So it shouldn’t be a stretch to believe that God expects us to be pure……

I won’t lie, for me, purity is something I have to keep crucifying the flesh over…..this is because of the law that is at work in my flesh…..that law which has no regard for the things of God, but wants to do evil…..the evil that I ought not to do……

Think about it, to be pure, means that we renew our minds in Christ, we learn to love like He loves, we act, react and respond to life like Christ showed us…..to truly be free of sin, we need to come to a point where we are perfected in Christ……it isn’t easy, but it is something we need to work on……..

Why? As Christ’s beloved, we cannot afford to be mingling with sin….Sin is of the world, is not of God…..We have no inheritance with sin….we have been restored and renewed by Christ’s sacrifice…….If we regard sin, we walk not in the spirit but in the flesh, we will not be of Him but of the world….the same world that He will come to condemn…….

John 16:8 “And when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgement”

What am I saying? We have the mind of Christ, we have been raised with power, and so we need to purge ourselves from sin…It doesn’t please God and we need not entertain it….But so often we do..…..

Why should we care about being pure? Jesus said that “Blessed are the pure, for they shall see God”…..What does that mean? Literally, that means that if we ain’t pure, we ain’t gonna see God, right?

I don’t know about you, but I want to see God…..In my circumstances here on earth, and when Jesus comes back clothed in power…..I want the Lamb of God to impute no sin in my heart……it isn’t easy, but that’s why we need to ask God to deliver us…..

I can’t say that I am without sin, because the word of truth would not be within me….But what is true that God expects me to work with Him and be active in stumping out sin in our lives……

Anyway, I want to give a testimony of my victory over sexual purity, by sharing with you my struggle with it……As you read this, it is my prayer that you will be encouraged to seek God and ask Him to deliver you from the sins that ensnare you……I pray that the Lord may so strongly reveal unto you the end result of the sin in your life, and that He may protect you and lead you down the path of righteousness……

OK, for many years, one area that I have struggled with is sexual purity. What triggered that you ask? Well, I think what triggered it has to do with the fact that as I began to develop physically and of course sexual feelings began to come up; I didn't deal with them in the wisdom of God…..

Let me explain. Rather than seek to establish pure, genuine relationships with women, and also trust that God would deliver me from sexual sin, I took the opposite road. I still had loads of great female friends, but because I didn’t acknowledge my sexual desires in the will of God, I began to seek other ways, sadly unproductive and unfruitful venues to express my sexual drive.

Remember that scripture of what you sow is what you reap? I submit to you I sowed wrongly……I let my sexual desires be fed by pornography, impure music, explicit films rather than from spiritual food.....Upon reflection, what I should have done is to ask the Lord to cleanse me from sexual impurity, and to lead me in His perfect will……I should have acknowledged my sexual desires, but rather submit them to His throne, rather than to find an earthly solution……

What happened next? I began to reap an evil harvest from that which I had sowed……Because I gave the enemy access to something very special that God had entrusted to me (my sexuality), my mind, my soul and my spirit became corrupted.

The enemy corrupted what was a healthy attraction toward women into something ugly and unhealthy…….And because I embraced that as acceptable in my life, I began to nurture an unhealthy attitude towards women…………

Rather than seeing them as beautiful vessels of God, empowered to do His will and special in His sight, I began to view them as sexual objects.

Because I hadn’t put into my mind the true knowledge of God, I was in danger of being let unto my own desires…….My mind, being corrupted, began to relate to them in selfishness……being overtly flirty with unclean intentions, conjuring up explicit sexual fantasies, etc. And before I knew it, I was on a path of sexual disease and absolute corruption…..from sexual addictions and weird sexual cravings that always needed to be satisfied.....

Worse still, I was in the right environment to do it……Being in the West, having high speed internet and stuff, I began to download all sorts of filth....from beastiality clips, clips of bondage, domination, entering weird chat rooms, discussing all sorts of filth with my friends, both male and female, and basically letting loose…..Mind you, all this while, I was still saved……

So what am I saying…..it is very easy to entertain sin, and if you aren’t careful, it will lead you down the path of certain destruction….But I thank God that He didn’t leave me, even though I was headed down a road to certain destruction.......Even through all that mess, the Lord began to open my eyes to what it was that I was encouraging in my life…..He made me see that indulging my sexual fantacies outside His will was out of a greedy and selfish attitude……And that this was not in His will for my life…..

Worse still, my lack of understanding on the true value and purpose for sex and women had began to lead me down a corrupted path and that I needed to change.

Here’s the real annoying thing with sin……When you tolerate it, it will hold you captive……All the while, I knew that I didn’t want to be abusing myself or my God by watching others abusing women, but I couldn’t stop it…..Sin had enslaved me……

And I knew that this path that I was on would lead me to death. I could feel God telling me that if I sojourned down this road for much longer, I would be caught in something I couldn't shake loose......

I'd start being one of those marauding youths perverted and looking for pleasure here and there, sleeping with anything and anyone, committing adultery with women all over the place, dominating over women by spiritually binding them in fornication and mis-using that which God had entrusted to me...

My health, my body, my soul, my salvation, my inheritance and my life was being compromised because I didn't have the discipline to look and stay focused on God.....

And you know what……..what scared me was that this particular road would eventually lead me to do things that I found utterly unspeakable, like abusing someone, rape, etc.

So how on earth did you shake free of this sin? Firstly, I had to confront it with the word……I had tried to stop in my flesh, many a time and it would work, but then I would soon fall right back in…….I had to know the word, dig myself into it, hid myself in it, and work with the Holy spirit to effect change………

The Lord helped me realize that the problem was that I had allowed sin to reign in my body, and whenever I would be tempted by that lust, I would give in........I think I was complacent coz I felt that "there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus"……

Here’s the sad thing……I was so ignorant of scripture…..the rest of that verse qualifies those who are free from condemnation……it actually adds on “..for those who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit”

A huge part of my problem is that I didn't really know God's word, given that the enemy had caused me to drift so far from God’s word, I stopped reading it!

Here’s the thing with impurity…..even the most basic of impurities….the enemy will throw that thing in your face and make you not want to come to God…..coz you will feel like God won’t accept you….the truth of the matter is that God loves you, but He doesn’t like the sin…..but He will help you rid yourself of it, if you ask Him, and if you harden not your heart when He reveals the sin to you….

So, when I finally confessed my sin, and laid it out there in front of God, and asked Him to purge me that I might be clean, to wash me that I might be whiter than snow, He began to do just that…..Mind you, it was a struggle, because I had to keep talking to my flesh, and reminding it that the Lord was my sufficiency……

When you are crucifying your flesh, you really need to throttle it with God’s word….when an impure thought would come, I’d have to fight it with God’s word…..Speaking unto my flesh, declaring God’s promises on my life……And when I would fall, I would get right back up and continue…..never giving up, or wavering at the things of God…..Just kept hammering my flesh and reading the Word of truth!

As I did that, an incredible work of restoration occurred….my flesh began to cooperate…..Also, something else that I did was to ask God to help me identify every trigger in me that would cause me to stumble….Every morning, I would pray that He removes anything that the enemy might have sown into my flesh at night of which I was unaware of……

Coz He is sly like that……He’ll come in and plant weeds……and before I know it, he’ll try and trip me up again…..

The word tells us to be wise of the schemes of the enemy, and that's what I am working to perfect.......I want to be wise as a serpent, so that when the enemy comes about I can resist him effectively……..Plus, I need to know how he attacks, so that I can fix all of the kinks in my armor….Then, I can unashamed, in holiness before God and purity before men and in complete liberty......I also asked the Lord to open both my physical and spiritual eyes, so that I can truly see…..See my sin like He sees it and detest it……Now, I look at the whole matter of sexual impurity, and it is really saddening me just how many men and women today are caught in this very trap of being slaves to sin……It is sad to watch men misunderstand their role and the purpose of sex, and watch them spiritually enslave women to them….It is equally sad to watch women being brought under the yoke of being dominated sexually, and to watch our generation, the church, our country be led down the road of destruction…that’s perhaps a blog for a different day….

It caused me such anguish, that I wrote to each of the women that I had enslaved in my sin and asked for their forgiveness…..It now disgusts me to even think of the things I used to do, and I thank God, because that iniquity has been loosed from me…..

My prayer is that the Lord uses this testimony to shame the devil and lift men out of their wickedness, and restore their relationships with God and to each other......

The truth is I don’t know what impurity you are dealing with, but I want you to be encouraged that the Lord is good, faithful and more than able to deliver you……If you were like me and felt that you kept being brought down by sexual impurity ask that Him who is our sufficiency begins to heal you in that area…that you may perfect your call of holiness in entirety……..

God bless you for reading, and as usual, send along all of your comments!