Devotional 260309

Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. Time flies when you are having fun in life! Yes, you may disagree to say that ‘I am not having fun but work like a dog each day to put out fire or meeting deadlines at work.’ But this all depends on your choice of attitude and mindset. When you handle life and all it involves with a renewed mindset that you are serving your Heavenly Father who also goes to work with you each day, then you may deal with workload and demanding boss with different attitude. The work environment remains stressful and difficult, but you can bring sunshine into your work place because of this renewed mindset. You may not necessarily enjoy what you do at work. But you can always enjoy working together with your Heavenly Father who is interested in you and your work at all time. As a matter of fact, it was Him who put you there for a purpose. The question is: Do you see Him at work in you and with you each day?

"Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God" (Matthew 5:8). Purity is not innocence; it is much more. Purity is the outcome of sustained spiritual compassion with God. We have to grow in purity. The life with God may be right and the inner purity remains unblemished, and yet every now and again the bloom on the outside may be polluted. God does not shield us from this possibility, because in this way we realize the necessity of maintaining the vision by personal purity. If the spiritual bloom of our life with God is getting impaired in the tiniest degree, we must leave off everything and get it put right. Remember that vision depends on character - the pure in heart see God.

God makes us pure by His sovereign grace, but we have something to look after, this bodily life by which we come in contact with other people and with other points of view, it is these that are vulnerable to contamination. Not only must the inner sanctuary be kept right with God, but the outer courts as well are to be brought into perfect accord with the purity God gives us by His grace. The spiritual understanding is blurred immediately the outer court is contaminated. If we are going to retain personal contact with the Lord Jesus Christ, it will mean there are some things we must avoid to do or to think, some legitimate things we must avoid to touch.

A practical way of keeping personal purity unblemished in relation to other people is to say to yourself - That man, that woman, perfect in Christ Jesus! That friend, that relative, perfect in Christ Jesus!

It is hard to remain pure in heart and unblemished in our relationship with people nowadays, when mass media bombard us with all kinds of images and messages that try to attract our attentions and corrupt our mind. We can’t bury our head under the soil like ostrich in face of attack. We can only turn to the Holy Spirit for help. We should train our soul to desire spiritual walk with Christ; develop appetite for healthy humor and fun; crave for knowledge of Truth and so forth. Of course, stay away from obvious temptations by all means. Make sure you don’t respond to Satan’s challenge to enter a fight with him alone. Once you enter into Satan’s arena (filthy websites and materials for instance) thinking that you are strong enough to withstand its temptation, you are doomed to loss and fail. Don’t fall into such foolish and childish snares.

Let’s pray for one another and spur one another to seek His goodness and holiness. Transparency and purity always go hand in hand. Once you develop the habit of hiding your sins and avoiding honest relationship with people, you open the door for Satan to creep into your life to cause significant damage down the road. Let’s serve as watchman or mirror for one another from time to time.

Love you because we are ONE in Christ,
Lawrence