Today's Scripture
Matthew 5:1-16
Maintaining the Proper Relationship “the friend of the bridegroom…” John 3:29
Purity is not innocence; it is much more than that. Purity can only be the result of one’s continued spiritual harmony with God. The true Spirit led life. We must grow in purity, free from being contaminated with religious and cultural lies. Our life with God may be right and our inner purity unblemished, yet occasionally our outer life may become spotted and stained. God intentionally does not protect us from this possibility, because this is the way we recognize the necessity of maintaining our devotion to spiritual vision through personal purity. If the outer level of our spiritual life with God is impaired to the slightest degree, we must put everything else aside until we make it right. Remember that spiritual vision depends on our attitude and character—it is “the pure in heart” who “see God.”
God makes us pure by an act of His sovereign grace, but we still have something that we must carefully watch. It is through our bodily life coming in contact with other people and other points of view that we tend to become tarnished and unattractive spiritually. Not only must our “inner sanctuary” be kept right with God, but also the “outer courts” must be brought into perfect harmony with the purity God gives us through His grace. Our spiritual vision and understanding are immediately blurred when our “outer court” is stained. If we want to maintain personal intimacy with the Lord Jesus Christ, it will mean refusing to do or even think certain things. And some things that are acceptable for others will become unacceptable for us.
A practical help in keeping your personal purity unblemished in your relations with other people is to begin to see them as God does. Say to yourself, “That man, or that woman is perfect in Christ Jesus! That friend or that relative is perfect in Christ Jesus!”