To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. – Titus 1:15 It’s incredible how dirty a person’s mind really is. You know what I’m talking about? I can just look at the conversations happening around me on the train and twist every single conversation around into a perverted, sick and twisted concoction. I know you just chuckled thinking about that. The kids in the room, wouldn’t have a clue, but that’s only because they haven’t been around us perverted folks long enough to get the subtly dirty messages. Let’s be honest, just because we’re culturally Christian, doesn’t mean that we’re any less perverted either. In fact, because the Bible has 365 or so (thou shall not …) we tend to have figured out, at least if we’re an adult, about 1,095 different ways around the “thou shall not” and this perverted those nots which were supposed to help keep us good. But just like we pervert the “not” to keep ourselves subjectively justified; we often take God’s promises to a new level of perversion in order to leverage a personally self seeking agenda. If you never have, that’s wonderful; if you have, because I know I have, it’s not the end of the world. If you’re unsure, let me give you an example of perverting God: if you have been rebellious, BSed (even on a paper), lied/conned/made excuses, for the sake of saving face or in the name of religion, and even worse, as you were “prompted by God”; then are part of this club of perversion and are working to deny the very power of God that saved you from eternal perversion– not fulfilling God’s call to Himself for your salvation and eternity. When we profess to know God, in relationship, we don’t work so hard on our own to deny His power and glory in our lives. But the problem really is that we spend most of our lives unwilling to yield ourselves to His power in some crazy denial. We profess to know God, but we deny him by our works. We make ourselves detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work when we have a working denial of God for our lives. Purity of mind and conscience is when we stop the working denial of God’s grace, love and mercy in our daily lives (trying to figure a way around Him). Have we tried to just love our family, friends, co-workers lately? Or have we been too busy working hard trying to get around them? As a result, my challenge for all of us is to become pure of thinking and doing: that is, to intentionally do in love how God showed us.
No responses yet