Sunday, May 13, 2012

The Beauty of Purity

The Lord loves purity, and for many reasons.  One that comes immediately to mind is that purity is a direct expression of his nature and his reality: the one who is pure is not tossed about or affected by the trends and fads - the winds this world blows and their varying temperatures; but instead he is timeless.  Immovable.  The very voice of love, hope, faith, joy, and peace

He is unstained, unhindered, by the perverted indoctrination of those who are bent on practicing evil.  Instead, he brings eternity into time with his very being - with every expression of his alive-ness.  He has a doctrine of life; but it is more than a doctrine: it is a way of life.  It is, in fact, the Way of life; and it encompasses him; it constitutes his existence.  So, one could say he is a doctrine of life.

Yes, he is timeless; but he is simultaneously within time.  He is not distant or far off in the future - impersonal and unreal. Instead, he is more in this moment than any one person who is trapped in time can be.  And yet he is not in this moment per se: he cannot fully be contained in one moment or expressed in it; but it is his coming to terms with the immortality of his soul that causes him to be simultaneously fully here and fully there - there referring to the fullness of God's Kingdom: the fulfillment of God's dreams (that they would be with me where I am).  Therefore, he lives unbound by time's chains, and yet he does not undervalue time.  In fact, he redeems time, making it beautiful, colorful, and creative.  He bends time to his Father's will; for he is a steward of all that his Father has given to him.


Yes, he is immovable in His faith; and he is a mover of others towards good works. In his immovability he is like the oak: his massive roots penetrate deep into the soil, and his trunk is the very picture of strength.  His spirit is deeply entrenched in the person of God.  He is always exploring God's mind and contemplating and meditating on God's thoughts and desires, slowly making them his own, integrating them into the patterns of his thought, into the tendencies of his heart.  He moves others in that he spurs others on towards good works of the Spirit.  He sees God's gifts in others and exhorts them to develop that which they have been given.

His words drip life; in this way he is the voice of all that is good. His words produce abundant fruit in the lives of others; and they resonate within the pure in heart.  The pure one gives voice to the yearnings and longings of the Spirit; for he is always conversing with Him - always listening for the slightest of whispers.  He has forsaken all other voices; he listens and rests in only that which his Father speaks; and he reveals what he hears to the broken around Him, bringing the warmth of joy to their downcast hearts.  He is truly a deep drink for all who find themselves desperately thirsty.  And even as he is surrounded on all sides by overfed, piggish souls and neglected spirits, his words divide soul and spirit, and refresh and renew the spirit, restoring its health and injecting it with an abundance of life.  This raising up of dead spirits of man reflects the tremendous beauty that the pure one carries within him; his words of resurrection give us a perfect image of the richness of his heart; for out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth speaks.

Yes, this one - this pure one - has a quality of otherworldliness that is simultaneously refreshing and disconcerting.  Refreshing in that it gives life to the deepest part of one's being; it reveals God on new levels and in new dimensions.  And disconcerting in that it confronts everything within us that is not of that same unstained quality and calls us to a deeper and more intimate abiding in the love of the Father - free from sins chains and free to follow and be fascinated with the God-man, King, Messiah, and Friend, Jesus the Christ.