Feasting on the Word
Title: Morality vs. Purity
by Candee Gentry
Morality vs. Purity
Which do you choose?
It is common, in today's society, to hear people say "I am a good, moral
person and I do good deeds, God wouldn't send me to Hell.". One part of
this statement is true; God WOULD NOT send anyone to Hell. When He created
man, in His infinite wisdom, He gave us all the gift of free-will. We send
ourselves to Hell. Many people
are deceived into believing that living a moral life, doing good deeds or
being an “all
around good person” will get them to Heaven. With this article, I hope to
prove this
theory wrong.
When we are born, we are born into sin (Romans 3:23). This sin creates a
gap between humans and the Creator. The gap filler is Jesus Christ, who
died on the cross to pay for OUR sins. When we ask Jesus into our heart,
our sin is blotted out forever. Now that we are Christians, do we live morally
or purely? What’s the difference? Morality is based on works and deeds.
Purity is based on God’s grace and mercy. Let’s look at the proof that says
living morally will not get us to Heaven.
Ephesians 2:8-10 tells us, without a doubt, how we are saved. Verse 10 goes
further by telling us that our works are ordained by God. He already knows
what works He has in mind for each particular individual. It is up to us
to pray and seek Him about those works. We MUST demonstrate our faith in
God by first being saved and then by being obedient unto the works that
He gives us. The purpose of the works is to demonstrate our faith and obedience.
The works of the Lord are not “chores” to be dreaded. With faith, we can
do the works joyfully. We cannot have works without the faith to do them
and we cannot have faith without works. They go hand in hand always and
we are promised to be judged by our works. Revelation 14:13 and 20:12 and
13 testify to this fact. However, to get to Heaven, we must FIRST have the
faith and then we are FOLLOWED by our works. Now we need to live a pure
life. So how do we live a pure life? The scriptures tell us very plainly
how to accomplish this goal.
1 John 3:6-10 tells us that since Jesus died
for our sins, we should no longer sin. If we sin, meaning to practice sin,
then we are not of God, we are of the devil. Titus 2:11-13 says that, by
God’s grace are we saved as well as saying that we should deny ungodliness
and worldly lusts. Can this be accomplished without the help of God, without
faith, without God’s grace? Not in a million years. Every true Christian
knows this to be true. We can do NOTHING without God (John 15:5).
We are commanded to be holy because we are Christians, meaning Christ-like,
and He is holy (1Peter 1:16-23, 1John 4:17). In verse 22 of this first reference
of scripture, we are told that our souls should be purified through obeying
the truth through, or with the help of, the Spirit (the Holy Spirit). Proving,
once again, we cannot do it in and of ourselves. 1John 2:6 also says that
we should walk as He (meaning Jesus Christ) walked. Did Jesus sin? No, never.
Therefore , we should remain sinless in our walk with the Lord. We are told
to walk in the Spirit in, Galatians 5:16, so that we will not fulfill the
lusts of the flesh. In this same chapter, in verse 24, it says that those
who belong to Christ HAVE(past-tense) crucified the flesh and the lusts
thereof. We need to crucify “self” and focus on Jesus in order to live a
pure life. In Chapter 6 of Galatians, verses 7 and 8, we see the consequences
of fleshly living and, in contrast, the joys of Spiritual living. There
are many blessings of living a holy life. One of those blessings is knowing
that we have overcome the world (1John 4:4 and 5:4-5) and that Satan cannot
touch us (1John 5:18) (more on this at a later date). If we do not live
in holiness, we will not see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14-17). God cannot look
on sin. He even turned away from Jesus when Jesus died on the cross because
Jesus was bearing the sins of the world (Matthew 27:46).
We can safely say that we should not be “hearers only” of the word of God.
We should follow our faith into works, not bury it (Romans 2:13).
Thank
you for joining me for this article. I will be doing further study on certain
aspects of purity and hope that you join me for those articles as well.
God Bless you as you seek His will for your life.
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