Shining Stars

Last week, I posted a wonderful quote from Mabel Hale’s “Beautiful Girlhood” and discussed holiness. For the next three posts, I would like to talk about purity and how it is a part of holiness.

1 Corinthians 7 describes unmarried young ladies as being in a very different situation from married women, because they are free to be holy (set-apart) for God in body and spirit.  That means, so long as you are unmarried, you are the exclusive property of God. It is as if God has put His mark on you that says “All Rights Reserved”. You reserve no rights of your own, not even to marry, unless it is according to His perfect, wonderful will. You live for God, to glorify Him through your life and your body.

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. (1Co 6:19-20 KJV)

One of the areas in which we must be pure is with regard to our bodies. Chastity is physical purity – keeping of our bodies. But purity goes beyond chastity. You see, man looks at our outward appearance, condition and actions but God looks at our heart.

We need to protect our heart, to keep watch over it. It is natural for our heart to be full of desires, but we need to surrender them to our Heavenly Father and not allow them to cause us to sin the areas of lust and idolatry. In the days of our youth, we must learn how to overcome and we must mature into strong women who can resist evil.

Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. (Jas 1:12-15 KJV)

The dangerous thing about desire is that it can develop into full-blown idolatry. The sin of idolatry is not only committed when we exalt something above God. Sin is committed when we disobey the Greatest Commandment, and have any love and desire for anything else other than God or apart from God. The Gospels teach us that we cannot even love our family above God (Matthew 10:27-29). No, God must be our first and only love. It is through God’s amazing, sacrificial, love for this world (John 3:16) that we can love others.

Why is this so important? It is important because human love is selfish. We naturally love others for our own benefit and for our own satisfaction. But the only love that can benefit others and is pleasing to God is the love of Christ, the love which led Him to the cross and the love that radiated from the cross when He said, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. (1Jn 2:15-16 KJV)

We cannot love the world. We cannot love anything that is in the world, especially not ourselves. If we love anything other than the Father-that-loves, that means the God’s love is not in us. The love of the world is the love of lust, of pleasure to the sense and of pride.

What is lust? What is temptation? What is desire?

Lust is the desire within us “for pleasure that wars in our members”. This desire within us is our enemy, for it is not from God, but from ourselves. The lust within us tempts us, and we are drawn away by our own desires and enticed into sin. The end result of sin is inevitably eternal death.

When we consider our desires, we must put them to the ultimate test – am I willing to love God above all? Is this desire part of loving God? What if God does not approve of my desire?

Even if our desire is natural and profitable, it must still be tested by the cross of Christ. For example, Abraham naturally desired a son and God desired to give it to him. However, it was a long and arduous journey, and even when Abraham has his Son, God required that Abraham relinquish even his only, precious, beloved, son to Him.

What happens when we refuse to allow God to deal with us, and we try to displace our desires, or justify them? We fall away from God. We have fallen into sin and idolatry.

What do we do with our desires? What do we do with our heart? There is only one answer – surrender completely to God. You must let God reign in every single area of your life. There is nothing you can withhold from Him, and often, the very area in which He wants to deal with us is the desire we cherish the most.

The heart of a Bat Mitzvah is one that loves God, that is circumcised, pure, holy, and upon which is written God’s Torah. Purity is holiness in mind, body and spirit. There is nothing as important as having a heart full of love for God. Our thoughts and emotions will then have the security of being set on the spiritual things of heaven (Col 3:1-3), and be guarded by our love for God. We will be so full of desire for God that all other impure thoughts and emotions will be banished.

Rebekah

Shalom! I'm Rebekah M and I love singing, playing musical instruments, learning languages, studying history, and working with my hands. May you be blessed!

What does it mean to be holy? To be holy is to be set-apart. God is “holy, holy, holy”. He is above and beyond men, and is separate from all the sins of mankind. He is high and lofty, and dwells apart. When He called Israel to be Holy, it meant that they had to ally themselves with Him and be separate from all the other nations.

When Jesus came down on earth as the Son of God, He taught us something about God’s holiness. God’s holiness does not come from Him distancing Himself from mankind. He is not holy simply because He is separate, but because He is different. His holiness was more powerful than the sinfulness and uncleanness of this world.

The Pharisees of Jesus’ day tried so hard to stay away from sinners, from unclean objects, from anything that defiled. But Jesus could never be defiled, because He was inwardly holy. He was a light in the very midst of darkness. He ate and drank with sinners. He touched lepers and healed them. His holiness and purity overcame the impurity of sin, so that when the lepers touched Him, instead of Him being defiled, they were cleansed.

Yeshua is called us to the same holiness today. Under the New Covenant, our hearts and minds are transformed. We are a New Creation, filled with the Holy Spirit. And we are called to consecrate ourselves completely to God.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.(Rom 12:1-2 KJV)

When we consecrate ourselves to God to belong to Him and do His will, we are living for His glory. Every one of us in the body of Messiah is a dwelling-place of God and a temple of the Holy Spirit. That is why holiness is so important.

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.(1Co 6:19-20 KJV)

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.(1Co 3:16-17 KJV)

Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.(Eph 2:19-22 KJV)

We are cleansed and receive victory through holiness and consecration. Then God comes and dwells in us.

Mabel Hale, who wrote, “Beautiful Girlhood”, explains this so well.

The purity that counts for most in your life and mine is purity of heart. It is possible for us to live with the very seat of our affections cleansed from that which is sinful, and our hearts made pure. The heart can be made a fit temple into which to ask the Lord to come and be the inhabitant.

One of the things every young Christian girl soon becomes aware of is the natural sinfulness of her own heart. When she is trying to do that which is right, evil thoughts and feelings will arise. She is tempted to be proud and selfish; and under certain provocation she feels the workings of anger in her heart, though by looking to God for help she keeps her lips from speaking out her feelings. Sometimes she is startled by feelings of jealousy and envy, two things that must not be allowed in the life of a Christian. She will find it hard at times to follow the Lord fully, to entirely do His will. If she will seek out the real desire of her heart, she will find that she wants a closer walk with God; yet when she tries to walk closer she is all the more conscious of these sinful impulses. If she understood herself she would know she needed a pure heart.

If a girl will come to God with her perplexities and tell Him the struggle she is having with “foes within,” and fully consecrate her life to Him, saying from the depth of her heart, “Lord, I give my life to Thee. Thou mayest have every part of it. Cleanse my heart and make it a fit place for Thee to dwell,” and trusting God to do what she has asked Him to do, she may have a pure heart.

God will cleanse out those sinful principles from her nature and make her a conqueror. Not that she will no more be tempted; but instead of those inward struggles that are so hard to master, she will find inward grace and strength to overcome.

There is a heavenly Visitor who will come in and fill the heart that is fully given to God, so that instead of those sinful impulses ruling there, this sweet Spirit of God will reign.

The experience of heart purity is not for anyone who cherishes any thought or feeling that is impure. If envy, or jealousy, or pride, or arrogance, or any kindred evil is allowed a place, the Spirit of God will not come to cleanse and fill his temple.

It seems to me a most wonderful thing, this deliberate giving over of oneself and life for God alone. We think of the young nun who leaves all the world and takes the veil for life, and wonder at her fortitude, and bewail her needless sacrifice; but on the other hand we too often fail to see that there is consecration and sacrifice in genuine Christian service. Not that sacrifice which in a sense buries one alive, but the consecration of service that will allow no desire or thought or aspiration to linger that is known to be contrary to the will of God.

There is a rest of spirit, and a quiet confidence, a joyfulness, and a perfection of love and peace in the heart of the one thus given over to God that cannot be described in words. Nor is this experience for only a favored few. Everyone who will seek God with all his heart, who will draw close, may have this experience of a pure heart.”

Rebekah

Shalom! I'm Rebekah M and I love singing, playing musical instruments, learning languages, studying history, and working with my hands. May you be blessed!