PASSION FOR PURITY

Passion has to do with intense feeling, a powerful emotion; a strong love or earnest desire for something. As Christians we ought to be passionate people. We should have strong feelings and powerful emotions for God and His holiness. However, more often than not, our powerful emotions are for our favourite TV programme, our business ventures, our career prospects, our family and friends, our leisure and holidays, our sports and games etc. And these things tend to pull us away from God.

We need to reorder our passion and emotions and redirect them to God. In this self-seeking and materialistic world, we need to be deeply interested in our God and Saviour. We need to realise that we are spiritually wretched and poor and start thinking and feeling deeply about God, seeking His face and favour: “Lord, I am spiritually down, how can I have a closer walk with you?” “I have many questions in my life; I am confused, Lord, give me answers.” “Lord I am going through many difficulties in my life, what are your solutions to the problems I am facing?”

What is this purity God wants us to pursue and be passionate about? The answer lies in knowing who God is. What is God like? There is no better answer than the one given in question four of the Westminster Shorter Catechism: “What is God? God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.” One attribute God shares with His people is His holiness.

Knowing and understanding God’s holiness is vital in our own Christian pursuit of holiness.

God Commands Purity

God says, “be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.” (1 Pet 1:15–16). What is holiness? Holiness is simply moral perfection or perfect righteousness.

We are commanded twice in this passage to be morally perfect, to be absolutely righteous. Holiness for a Christian is not an option, but a command. A Christian is a “saint” (Greek hagios, literally “a holy person”), a person characterised by holiness. Since God is 100% holy, we must be 100% holy as well.

God does not compromise His standards. 100% holiness means 100% holiness! That was why Jesus said, “If you want to see God, you must be pure in heart” (Matt 5:8). To be 100% holy! Is God asking for the impossible? Yes He is. “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.” (Luke 18:27).

How then can we obtain this perfect holiness and righteousness?

Jesus Christ Our Purity

We obtain this righteousness through Christ. This we learn from 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” We have no ability whatsoever to be holy. We are dead in our sins and trespasses. We stand under the curse of the Law. Is there anyone here who can say that he has kept perfectly the Ten Commandments? As the Bible has said, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23). “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Rom 3:10). We are totally corrupted by sin. Our heart is totally black; as black as black can be! How can our sins be washed away? The most powerful soap in the world can never wash our sins away. Only one thing is powerful enough to wash our sins away, and that is the precious blood of Jesus Christ—the precious blood from the perfect Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world (1 Pet 1:19).

The blood of Jesus Christ speaks of His life. Life is in the blood. Jesus lived for nearly 34 years on this earth. During His life on earth, He kept the Law perfectly as our Representative (Matt 5:17–18). He came not to destroy but to fulfil the Law. Righteousness is one requirement for entrance into heaven. Since we can never by our own good works be holy as God is holy, Jesus must be holy and do all the good works for us. Jesus kept the Ten Commandments perfectly for you and for me. When we confess Him as Saviour, He will clothe us with His righteousness which is 100% perfect. Jesus was the sinless, sacrificial Lamb “without blemish and without spot” (1 Pet 1:19). As the Son of God from heaven, He was sinless by nature, and as the Son of Man, He was sinless in conduct. He was sinless and did not sin at all when He lived with us and for us on earth.

The blood also speaks of His death. Jesus died as a perfect Sacrifice for our sins. He had to shed His precious blood for without the shedding of blood, there is no remission (Heb 9:22). The penalty of sin is death (Rom 6:23). That was why Jesus had to die. He had to pay the penalty of sin as our Substitute. He took our place in His life and in His death. We thank the Lord that He not only saved us by His life and by His death, but also by His life again—for He was buried and on the third day rose again from the dead. We have a living Saviour who is the resurrection and the life—the way, the truth, and the life—and the only way to heaven is through Him (John 11:25, 14:6).

Perfect purity comes from Jesus Christ alone. In and of ourselves, we can never attain to perfect purity. We need the purity of Christ. We must believe and trust in Christ. We must be born again (1 Pet 1:23). Are you born again? Have you trusted in Christ for your salvation 100%?

Never trust in the flesh, but in the Word of God. 1 Pet 1:24–25 says, “For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the Word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.”

Our loving God offers to you this piece of good news: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” (Acts 16:31). JK

WRONG ABOUT HOMOSEXUALITY!
Don Boys, PhD

A serious person will not try to overturn civilization’s morals, manners, and mores of thousands of years without very thoughtful consideration.

People who are soft on perversion don’t know the difference between right and wrong, up and down, black and white, good and bad, or normal and abnormal. The Hebrew prophet Amos commanded us to “Hate the evil and love the good.” (We are commanded to hate evil but never persons.) However, most people relegate Amos to the ash heap and suggest that what is evil for one person may be good for another. Afraid not. While there can be some honest disagreement about some things, when God speaks about an issue, that settles it. God has spoken clearly about perversion. And that settles it!

Most homosexuals, rather than deal with our objections and criticisms, resort to the embarrassing and humiliating ploy of screaming, “hate,” “bigotry,” and “intolerance.” That is much easier than speaking to the real issue. Even if some “traditional marriage” proponents are haters, that does not mean homosexuality is right and good for society.

Not the Creator’s Fault

No, it is not the Creator’s fault because Christ said in Matthew 19:4–5, “Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?”

Practicing homosexuals are people who were born heterosexual and are rebelling against the God-ordained plan for his or her life. Homosexual is simply a term given to heterosexuals who rebel against God’s plan for mankind.

Absent accidental birth defects, a person is born with male or female equipment and the use of such equipment is normal, obvious, and desirable under circumstances planned by a gracious God. To use that “equipment” wrongly (which is abnormal) is detrimental to the individuals involved and a threat to God’s plan for society. However, sin-cursed mankind always seeks to get out of life what God never intended to be in it. Disobedient men take the good and make it bad.

One does not have to react to every desire. One may be naturally lazy but he still gets up each day and goes to work. One has a natural and driving desire for chocolate but he doesn’t eat a dozen Snickers each day. Even if an alcohol gene were found, it would not justify a person becoming a drunk. Nothing and no one forces a man to slip between the sheets with another man and to do so is abnormal, aberrant, and abominable.

People change all the time so the counselors should not tell people they cannot change their sexual desires and practices. Of course, they can change. I know former practicing homosexuals who have changed and are living normal, happy, productive lives—with a houseful of children. If homosexuals cannot change then there is no hope for the pedophile. Moreover, if the pedophile is “born that way” and cannot change his behavior then how can prison be justified?

Homosexuals Don’t Exist

The fact is homosexuals don’t exist but there are heterosexuals who choose a life of perversion and rebellion against God. Let me make it clear: homosexuals, as a group, do not exist but homosexuality does exist as it is a choice made by weak, warped, willful, and wicked people.

Growing Up Straight, a book recommended by the National Institute of Mental Health, reveals, “Scientific consensus holds that homosexuality is very largely conditioned by the environment and childhood and most particularly by parental influence in the home.” No gay gene, no excuse.

Two researchers Bearman and Bruckner in the March, 2002 American Journal of Sociology concluded, “[O]ur results support the hypothesis that less gendered socialization in early childhood and preadolescence shapes subsequent same-sex romantic preferences.” The Yale/Columbia professors are saying that DNA does not determine same sex preferences. It is life experience that shapes sexual preferences. No one is born gay. No one.

Bryan Fischer quoted ScienceDaily as saying, “[N]o major gene for homosexuality has been found despite numerous studies searching for a genetic connection.” No one is born gay.

Dr. Lisa Diamond, a lesbian feminist psychologist who is also a highly respected member of the American Psychological Association, has spent years refuting the idea that homosexuality is innate and immutable. As stated by clinical psychologist Dr. Laura A. Haynes, through her publications, Diamond is declaring that, “The battle to disprove ‘Born that way and can’t change’ is now over, and (Diamond) is telling LGBT activists to stop promoting the myth.”

(Extract from “Common Sense for Today”, http://donboys.cstnews.com, April 24, 2019.)