Purity As a Lifestyle

Over the past several months I have had this fascination with the concept of purity. Not just physical purity, as in, not having sex before you are married, but purity in its entirety--purity as a lifestyle.

I suppose this interest spawned after seeing Jason Evert and Matt Smith give a chastity talk at NCYC last November. However, I believe it was after hearing Jason speak a second time this past March at High School Conference that I began to feel very convicted my the message of purity. I really admire Jason for his wisdom and encouragement of purity. Not only does he attack the issue from a moral and religious standpoint but he backs up his arguments with medical and psychological findings. It's really amazing.

Over these past few months, however, I have reached the general consesus that God really does not intend for us to date. If he did there would not be the emotional implications that go along with the entire "dating scene." Emotional wounds like that are just not what God intended. When you really consider it from all angels we are really and truly only designed for "One Love," to quote U2.

However, back to living purity.

This semester I have been attending a bible study here on campus and together we are reading a book called When God Writes Your Love Story by Eric and Leslie Ludy. I highly recommend that everyone glance over this book a time or two. However, the chapter that we discussed this week really got my mind going because Leslie addresses the fact that "physical purity cannot be serparated from our emotions" and to elaborate on that our emotions are a reflections of our thoughts, views, and motives, therefore in order to really live a pure life, to achieve purity in all its glory we must be constantly seeking God with every second of our life and we must be constantly chasing after his will. Leslie later goes on to make this statement which I found most provocative:

"It doesn't mean we will always be perfect, but it does mean that we will be headed in the right direction...on a path not of compromise, but of radiant and joyful purity in its truest forms."

God has so many incredible blessings He is just dying to bestow upon us but through our own actions and giving in to our own will and desires we deny ourself pure and radiant joy. It boggles my mind really.

What I particularly liked about this particular quote though, it her comment about heading in the right direction. Again that goes back to what I said earlier about seeking God.

We are not perfect (Ben Moser, this unfortunately includes you, although you come so very close), and in reality God never asks us to be perfect, he created us knowing well and good that we are going to screw up and constantly fall short of His glory. What He does ask us to do though, is to keep our focus on Him and try our darnedest to live out His word with our lives.

One of my biggest frustrations in this world is people who with their mouths will give glory and praise to God and then live a lifestyle that does not reflect that. What frustrates me even more is when people feel convicted of what needs to change in their lives yet they do not even make a true, heartfelt effort to change. At least try, come on people.

Surrending our lives to God is one heck of a task, it may leave us confused, unsure, and vulnerable, but it sure does NOT make us weak. God really does have an amazing power to work through us and change lives but His light cannot shine brightly through a tarnished heart.

Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me.