Purity for the Modern Woman

Picture of a Cyclamen Persicum, the Israeli National Flower, on the Mount of Olives.

So in today's culture "Modern" is such a broad and loosely used word. So, let me start off with defining what I mean by "Modern". Modern Woman, as it is discussed here is a woman living in today's culture and society, whether young or old, single or married, mom or career woman. A woman living in the here and now in this modern day and age.

Now with that out of the way... 

It was last week I found myself thinking about this idea of Purity. I had just received an email from a friend asking me to speak with a group of young ladies attending a True Love Waits Conference, at the church I grew up in, about Purity. Unfortunately, due to a scheduling conflict I won't be able to, but it started me thinking. Thinking about that little piece of paper I signed when I was in youth group, about the key necklace I wore and gave to my husband the day that I got married, and what purity means for me today. 

What does Purity mean for me, not as a wife and mom, but what does purity look like for me...for my soul. Well, let me tell you what purity is not. Purity is not abstaining, purity is not avoidance, purity is not trying to do better and be better. It can't be those things. If I want to be pure, truly, really, "without" as Webster's defines it, I can't do it, not on any level. It's false, humanistic, and driven by my own abilities. 

Purity:

a) lack of dirty or harmful substances

b) lack of guilt or evil thoughts

It must go beyond me, because me, is a sinner, broken, weak, distracted, and human. 

Just as Adam and Eve in the garden, we want what we want, to reach outside of God's plan and purpose for our lives, even if just a little, thinking no one will ever know. We want what is outside of the design. 

So Purity...HOW?!?!?! 

Let's now replace the word purity with the word HOLY: TO BE ALTOGETHER SEPARATE. If I want to be pure, my purpose and focus must be on that of HOLY. My mind dwells on a million different things throughout the day and not often on HOLY. Most of the time it is making it from bed, to breakfast, to school, to lunch, to nap time, chores, dinner, kid's bedtime, and then to the quiet. Where does the HOLY fit into that? What does fit into that is anxiety, stress, exhaustion, frustration, short temperateness, and anger. My mind focused on what is before my feet and not what is above me. When our eyes are focused on what is down we will only see what is down, and will be gut-wrenchingly faced with our inability to accomplish all that lies before us. However, we must as the psalmist says is Psalm 121, lift our eyes upward...that is where our help comes from. 

Lifting our eyes is hard, it's scary, it takes effort, takes surrender, and sadly it's usually only done when we have nothing left, no other plan, when we have tried it all, to no avail. At some point we forgot that to which we were born again to. You see in 1 Peter 1 it says we are born to a living hope, through the RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. Y'all for a minute think about that, set aside the innumerable times you have heard about HIS resurrection and just think about that. HE DIED and WAS RESURRECTED!!! He declared death and Satan a liar and a LOSER!!! Because of this we have hope, but not just that... it's a LIVING HOPE. Alive, never ceasing, unending, always, and forever. If He, Jesus, was brought back to life, then we to are given this, allowed this same LIFE, through His great mercy to experience the same. LIFE. I all to often live like the walking dead. In this LIVING HOPE I am granted the boldness and courage it takes to look up to HIM, to meet His EYES. To be beheld and to BEHOLD. Oh to be as Isaiah in Isaiah 6, completely undone before the Lord, purified before HIM, Healed, Whole, and desiring of only HIM, in a world that wants nothing to do with HIM at all. 

It's no surprise that we have every shade of off white, grey, black, and every other manner of that which is not HOLY thrown at us, flashed before us, dangled in front of us. However, when our eyes are set fully only on HIM nothing...I MEAN NOTHING will suffice, nothing will even compare to the glory that is beheld in HIS eyes. YOU will/can be enveloped in the one who has chosen you, ransomed you, healed you, freed you, and bestowed all that HE has on you. Whether your faith is strong or weak? Whether you find yourself full of hope or hope is all but lost? LOOK UP!!!

2 Corinthians 3:7-18 (The Message)

Lifting the Veil

7-8 The Government of Death, its constitution chiseled on stone tablets, had a dazzling inaugural. Moses’ face as he delivered the tablets was so bright that day (even though it would fade soon enough) that the people of Israel could no more look right at him than stare into the sun. How much more dazzling, then, the Government of Living Spirit?

9-11 If the Government of Condemnation was impressive, how about this Government of Affirmation? Bright as that old government was, it would look downright dull alongside this new one. If that makeshift arrangement impressed us, how much more this brightly shining government installed for eternity?

12-15 With that kind of hope to excite us, nothing holds us back. Unlike Moses, we have nothing to hide. Everything is out in the open with us. He wore a veil so the children of Israel wouldn’t notice that the glory was fading away—and they didn’t notice. They didn’t notice it then and they don’t notice it now, don’t notice that there’s nothing left behind that veil. Even today when the proclamations of that old, bankrupt government are read out, they can’t see through it. Only Christ can get rid of the veil so they can see for themselves that there’s nothing there.

16-18 Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there they are—face-to-face! They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We’re free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.