Day 24 – The Purity of the Cross

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8)

“Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.  Cleanse your hands, you sinners,  and purify your hearts you double minded.” (James 4:8)

“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?  You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.  So glorify God in your body.” (1 Corinthians 6:19, 20)

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the Founder and Perfecter of our faith.” (Hebrews 12:1, 2)

We have discovered that a call to a pure heart is a call to being exclusively loyal…faithful to our God that we love with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind and all our strength.  It is not so much about being perfect as it is about being 100%.  We have also seen that this attention to purity positions us to be useful to the Master in the work of His Kingdom.  And…the life of Jesus illustrated that this is sometimes agonizing work, but the pure heart follows God’s will over our will every time. There is another reason to be concerned with the cleanliness of our spiritual house…we are no longer our own.  God has purchased us and has moved in.

As believers we must be continually reminded that we are no longer in the driver seat of our lives.  Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” (Galations 2:20).  Jesus told us, “If anyone would would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23).

When you first invited Jesus to come into your life and take His rightful place as your Lord, He cleansed you from head to toe.  You had a total make over.  The Bible describes it as a spiritual resurrection.  You can’t be more radically transformed than that!  And now, by the power of the Holy Spirit, who lives in us, we are called to keep it clean…a life of purity.

Our temptation is to be distracted by the things of this world, the sins that weigh us down and our own pride.  In Hebrews we read that we must throw off these things and fix our eyes on Jesus!  This is the denying ourselves.  This is the daily taking up the cross.  This is following Jesus.

So what do you have to do to make the Holy Spirit more at home in your life?  Are there areas of your life that have fallen into disrepair or where sin has taken ahold of you?  Don’t let another day go by without asking the Lord to forgive you and cleanse you again from these things.  Recommit yourself to Him and keep your eyes on Him in whatever you are doing today.