See the Purity of God

Scripture

Our verse for today comes from Titus 1:15, ” To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled. “

Background

While my mom was staying with me and my family for what turned out to be the last month for her here on earth, she was a constant source of productivity and accomplishment. Her being here allowed my wife to work some extra shifts at the hospital, and my mom eagerly dove in and picked up the slack around the house. She did laundry, prepared meals, washed dishes, cleaned the kitchen, and looked after the kids as if it was forty years earlier and she was raising her own kids again. But that’s the way mom was. She was a doer and a worker. One day I might come home and she’d be replanting bushes and pulling up all the weeds, the next she’d be hanging up all the Christmas decorations. Another day might have her sewing cushions for the porch swing, and the next she’d be re-wiring my broken sidewalk lights. Everywhere she looked, she saw something that she could do. For the industrious, that’s how they see things. Everything is an opportunity to serve and get things done. On the contrary, for the lazy, the work around them doesn’t seem to catch their eye, and when it does, more effort is spent on how to avoid it than on pitching in and helping out.

Application

And I think our hearts operate similarly. For the one whose heart has been purified from the blackness and death that it once knew, and embraces the newness he has tasted, everything around them is an opportunity for God’s Spirit to bring about more purity and goodness. The misguided youth or the inconsiderate co-worker is just a captive of the sin within them and someone that needs the saving grace that they themselves have experienced. But to the one who has lost their first love that Christ once was, to this one who has forgotten from what God saved them, the defiled and unbelieving creatures around them are just that, fodder for sin and deserving of their plight. So which one are you? We know which one Jesus was. The question remains, which one will you be today? Will you see what God can do? Will you actually believe He will do it?

Charge

As we seek Him today, ask God to allow you to see as He sees. Ask Him to reawaken that passion and zeal that His Spirit brings, and make yourself available to what He might ask you to do.