121 - A Call to Purity

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

2 Corinthians 5:16-17

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Romans 12:2

You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

Ephesians 4:22-24

•

By the power of God through His Son, we in Christ are reborn and recreated, a new creation seated with Him in the heavenly realms. We possess an entirely new spiritual outlook and view of ourselves, imparted to us by God through His Son, redeemed and reconciled. We have a heavenly position as His children born of the Spirit, His saints, and His priests. Our bodies are the temple of the living God who dwells within us. Through His indwelling, we are imbued with His holiness, righteousness, and purity. We have a call to purity because that is who we are. We desire what is new because we are new, bright, clean, and divine.

Despite this, we may still go about with a pre-Christ view of ourselves as sinners because we see our walk in the body as misaligned with who He has made us in the Spirit. But the transformation of our walk in the body is a lifelong process, a process where, on the one hand, through faith we see ourselves as He has made us, and at the same time, we understand that our walk in the body is God’s process of alignment. Christ has made us spiritually pure in order that we may see ourselves as pure. In this process of acknowledgment, our minds are freed to renew. In renewing our minds, we set aside the old in order to embrace the new. Christ’s sacrifice affords us this ability, and in this, our lives truly transform.

In purifying us, Christ set us free from the internal warring of good and evil brought about through the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden, clearing our conscience before God. Without His sacrifice, our minds instinctively set on the flesh, as it was with the Law, a constant reminder of our inadequacies. In this conflict, it is impossible for our minds to renew. Guilt holds us in a constant state of condemning thoughts, a mindset of the flesh in which it is impossible to please God or to be transformed into who He has made us.

The desire of our hearts to walk holy, righteous, and pure lives grows as the belief in who we are in Christ deepens. In the deepening of our faith, we are filled with the Holy Spirit, and by His power, His fruits, love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, manifest in us. We are spurred on by the love of God and the sacrifice of His Son, who has made us part of this glorious new life. The depth of God’s love is made full in us as we affirm the truth that all we have in Christ has been brought about not by our own doing, but by the free gift of His grace. In response to all this, our lives become a reflection of the gratitude within us for a life of incomparable richness.