Singular Purity in Vision, or Just Purity of Vision?

This is again, one of those entries that throws the responsibility of maintaining my relationship with my Master back squarely in my court.  I prefer the ones where the responsibility is all His and I get to enjoy the results, but unfortunately Scripture sides with Chambers on this one, quite plainly, or in this case clearly.

This is from the Beatitude which says, "Blessed are those pure in heart, because God they shall see."  The focus is on the purity, and the word is used in the sense of being made of one thing, like pure gold or pure water.  One the aspects of purity that always has been ironic (and therefore amusing to me) is that not everyone agrees on whether purity in things is good or if some additive adds preferable qualities.  For instance, pure water does not sell as well as water purified but with minerals added for flavor.  Gold is typically not pure because it is too soft without some other metal present to reduce malleability, and whatever is made from it is more easily preserved without scars and marks.  But it is not this way with my Master.

In Scripture, from beginning through the end, purity is a required quality.  It is inherent in my Master and is desirable in His servants.  In fact, the final act of my Master on behalf of His servants will completely purify them as if through fire where the final dross will be removed forever.  Purity will be our characteristic as well.  But right now I am not there.  One of the ways this comes out is in the Law as recorded by Leviticus.  In that book purity is taken to very strange extremes, extremes that scholars and students have tried to explain as rational.  Some can be, but others completely defy this attempt.  For anyone who likes clothes with a cotton wool blend, they would be breaking a law against wearing clothing made from two types of cloth.  Lindsey-Woolsey shirts are prohibited, cotton-wool blends are not for the chosen people of God.  The point here is not durability or comfort, it is purity, and only purity (or purely).

So, there are things I can do to maintain "ritual purity", but that is not what is meant here.  This word is actually the Greek root for catharsis, and refers to cleansing.  Uh-oh, clean up my act?  Pretty much, that is the point here.  See, Jesus paid a sin debt, which also functioned to purify me before my Master, and my spiritual connection to God in Christ Jesus is secured by Him.  But my experience of this connection can be hampered or limited by my failure to maintain a "cleanliness of character".  I feel the effects of this truth through waring emotions like guilt or shame, or guilt and shame.  Anger can be a warning sign that something is out of kilter.  But there are also more subtle signs that I have some cleaning up to do.  When I feel my "prayers are just bouncing around the ceiling and not reaching God," I probably have some clean up to do.  When I discover that I am very emotional, weepy at points which do not warrant such a response (OK, like crying at commercials or something), I probably have some cleaning to do.  But there are other indicators and clues as well.  These are signs that I have not been keeping my character pure and have some cleaning to do.

Fortunately, my Master has made provision for this as well.  He says in 1 John 1:9 that if I confess my sin, He is faith and just and will forgive my sin and purify me from all unrighteousness.  So the cleaning for which I am responsible has to do with searching for the dirt, and bringing it out before my Master.  Again, you may have noticed another function of this blog.  Sorry, but readers get to witness a ritual purification process of another.  I hope it helps whoever reads, but if not, you are free to read something else.  Perhaps the entry tomorrow will help more.  But I write these things for the purposes of making myself more available to my Master, for purification before Him, and not for the edification and encouragement of others.  That is a welcome byproduct, but not the root purpose.  I've said it before and it is still true. 

So, this is the 50 somethingth blog entry.  I guess it might be a good time to evaluate how it's going with the cleaning.  Looking back I see progress.  I see over the last two months a trail of improvement in my attitude and response to work, family, even traffic (crazy, I know!).  These improvements are clearly the effect of the work of my Master.  The experience of these improvements over the past few months happened over these past few months because He has more access to me now than He has had in the past 10 years.  That is really critical.  I am seeing the blessings of purity, seeing the handiwork of my Master, seeing my Master more clearly.  The pure in heart will see God, and the greater the purity, the better the view.  I like the view from here, but I admit, it is still dingy.  There is more scrubbing to be done, the windows are not yet clean.  More Windex please, or perhaps a mixture of vinegar and water. 

Does This Holiness Make My Head Look Big?

I am amused every time I tell other believers that the word "holy" is a word borrowed from pagans.  They seem shocked to hear that.  But the Christian Scriptures were written in Greek, a language of pagans.  How could the word not be a borrowed pagan word.  Almost all of them were.  What it means though is that the meaning was also brought over.  There was a pagan understanding of holiness rarely considered.  I consider it only because most of the places I have to practice holiness are "pagan" rather than Christian.

Paul, in his closing of his first letter to the church in Thessalonica wished for them that the God of peace would sanctify them (the process making them holy) all through; spirit, soul, and body.  He used words that referred to both quality and quantity, leaving no space in the believers life for the common or profane.  So, these believers were to practice this holy dispostion in the world around them; a pagan, sometimes hostile, misunderstanding, self-focused, and sometimes indifferent society.  It sounds familiar.  They really cared about Jesus followers only when the peace or commerce were disrupted.

So what does holy mean?  http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sanctification try this link.  It's informative.  The simplified definition includes purity from sin and the process of being set apart for God's use alone.  The second part is the normal use in pagan understanding, the process including a washing which where the first part is derived from.  In the Hebrew Scriptures, holiness was so important than an entire book was dedicated to both the Hebrew people and the priests who served God on their behalf.  God was very strict in how He wanted this holiness expressed by both priests and the rest of the people.  Unfortunately, the contents of the book of Leviticus have not made very interesting reading for most modern believers.

So how does this holiness play out in my life?  It must play out in some way which preserves the characteristic of being set apart, and also intersect with this unholy world.  That was forbidden in Leviticus.  Holiness was maintained by not mixing things, anything, even types of cloth (no wool blends!).  So how can I walk before this infinitely Holy God and be blameless as He calls me to be, when I have to interact daily with people who are anything but holy; they aren't even interested in being holy?

The short answer is, "I don't know."  The nice thing is that I don't have to know.  One less thing to worry about.  The verse after Paul expresses his wish for the believers sanctification (the process again), he praises the God calling them to be holy, and says, "He will do it."  He uses the future tense.  He uses the generic word for make or do.  He uses a short sentence, which for Paul should mark something as particularly special.  So what do I do?  I let Him.

Spiritual disciplines are activities I take which make me accessible to God and His work in transforming me.  They do not, in and of themselves, make me holy.  In fact sometimes they can become so distracting, they keep me from holiness.  I was never intended to be set aside to spiritual disciplines.  I was intended to be set aside for the work of God through His Spirit within my very soul, spirit, and body.  So, I live out my day, interacting with the pagan world, yet trying to set my mind on things above.  Somewhere in the midst of that struggle to remain between two worlds, God makes these adjustments and tweaks to the core of my being.  People around me notice before I do that there are qualities about me that are less about me, and more about God himself.  I become a tree bearing different fruit; fruit of the Spirit rather than my spirit.

It would be glaringly obvious to even the most casual observer that my cynacism, skepticism, sarcasm, and hautiness are probably not those "fruit".  So, the Gardener has a long way to go with this stubborn tree.  "More discipline, please," I murmur as I hold out my hands to my Master.  And with a sigh of resignation, but with a tinge of hope, I enter again into another day.  Perhaps today I will show progress and bear at least one example of good fruit.