Purifying Ourselves

     We, as Christians, represent Jesus (as His followers), represent God (as His children), and represent Christ’s church (as members of it). We may be ‘the only Bible the careless world will read’ (excerpt from hymn by Annie Johnson Flint), we need to speak and behave in such a way that people can see God through us (this includes what we post and share online, even jokingly) and see the well-anchored hope we have in Jesus! We need to determine daily to do all we can to help others believe in the goodness of God, so that they too will seek Him! We can only do that when we keep our priorities straight and work at purifying ourselves!

“Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like him, for we shall see Him as He is. And whoever has this hope in Him purifies himself just as He is pure.”   (1 John 3:1-3 NKJV)

    I would like you to take time today to think on the meaning of “purifies” and “pure.”

Purifies - the Greek word ‘hagnizo’ (Strong’s G48) means to make clean, set apart morally, to cleanse from defilement.

    This is our daily responsibility: to be careful what our eyes see, what our ears hear, what our mouths speak, what our hands do, where our feet go (consider Psalm 1 and 2 Timothy 2:22); to keep ourselves pure from evil/sinful influence!

Pure – the Greek word ‘hagnos’ (Strong’s G53, from ‘hagios’ (G40) which you will remember means ‘holy’) means clean, perfect, properly pure (to the core), pure inside and out, holy because uncontaminated (undefiled from sin), without spoliation even within (even down to the center of one’s being); not mixed with guilt or anything condemnable, pure from every fault.  

    This is what God is. It is what we work toward because we are His children! We work toward this kind of purity because we desire to be like Him and to see Him as He is!  As God’s children, as Christians, we have this hope, so, we too have this responsibility!

    As the Lord wills, let’s dig into this study and learn how to purify ourselves just as He is pure!!

You can do it! So can I!!