God Wants us to Pursue Purity

1 John 3:3 (NIV)

All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

It was “Ask the Youth Leader Night” for the kids at church and everyone was depositing their questions into the hat.  The evening always provided lots of discussion centered on questions about faith the Bible or just about anything.  Tom pulled the first question out of the hat as all eyes were focused on him hoping of learn from his wise counsel and understanding.

He glanced at the question on the piece of paper and paused for just a moment.  Then he said, “Here’s a dating question, it says ‘How far is too far?’”  Without much hesitation he started right in.  “You see here’s the problem, this is really the wrong question.  The right question is how far away from trouble’s door can I remain?”

Too many ask the wrong question wondering how close I can get to the fire without actually getting burned.  Scripture uses the same object lesson.

Proverbs 6:27-28 (NIV)

 Can a man scoop fire into his lap
without his clothes being burned?
 Can a man walk on hot coals
without his feet being scorched?

Purity is the total absence of contaminants.  As an example the purity of gold is measured in carats.  The purest gold is 24 carats or roughly 99% pure gold.  Eighteen carat gold would be 18 parts gold and 6 parts other metals.  The point is that if you want the purest gold you need to keep all the other impurities out.

So if we want to maintain a pure life then we will want to keep the impurities out.  That means staying as far away from the impure things as we can.  The real question is not, how close can we get to the fire and not get burned but how far away from the impurities.

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