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God’s goal: The Apostle Paul nails it. He understands God’s goal. God wants us to live a pure life. No doubt about it. Jesus makes it clear it isn’t about plodding along like some religious zombie. Nope.

It’s about living a spirited dance with God our Father. It’s about pleasing God.

When you love someone you want to please them. It’s not about “they said so”. It’s about a living relationship. God wants that. That brings purity in His eyes. That is God’s goal for us. Purity!!

For this is God’s will, your sanctification [purification]: that you keep away from sexual immorality, that each of you knows how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not with lustful passions, like the Gentiles, who don’t know God. | Christian Standard Bible. (2020). (1 Thessalonians 4:3). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.

God is pure and holy. There is nothing about God that is false at all. There is no evil in God. Purity refers to flawless. God is flawless. There is no sin in God because of His purity. The purity of God and His Son Jesus is to show us the way. I am a new creation in Jesus.

Jesus challenges me. “Happy are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” Clearly, I am to be pure. It is a matter of the heart. Purity means to be “clean, blameless, unstained from guilt.” Interestingly, the word can refer specifically to that which is purified by fire or by pruning. John the Baptist told people that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire.

I am pure through the redemptive work of Jesus on the cross and the power of the Holy Spirit working in my life. I cannot ignore continuing to miss God’s goal for my life (aka sin). I must change my way of thinking (repent) and act differently. Jesus requires me to be pure in heart! Jesus said to the woman caught in the act of adultery “Go and sin no more.” God didn’t condemn her but we are to be pure.

  • 1 John 1:5 (NASB) — 5 This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.
  • Habakkuk 1:13 — 13 Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, And You can not look on wickedness with favor. Why do You look with favor On those who deal treacherously? Why are You silent when the wicked swallow up Those more righteous than they?
  • Job 4:17 — 17 ‘Can mankind be just before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker?
  • Psalm 18:26 — 26 With the pure You show Yourself pure, And with the crooked You show Yourself astute.