Keeping Ourselves Pure
Good evening sisters in Christ!
I hope your day is well in the Lord! Today I want to talk about keeping ourselves pure (as we see we are to keep ourselves unspotted in James 1) in the sense of living in the world but not of it. I thought I'd share part of an email that I sent a younger sister, then expound on it. The goal of this article is to encourage you sisters to have characters of purity, even as we walk through this wicked world.
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"You mentioned being pure for Christ and yes, we should all strive for that, amen sister! We also have to realize and understand that what the world does, does not defile us as long as we don't participate in it. Us being out in the streets dealing with the vileness, profanity, hypocrisy of claimed Christians, immodesty, worldly music, demonic activity, ungodly conversations etc day in and day out do not defile us and we remain pure. The brothers and sisters around the world living with unbelieving spouses who are in vile sins, or brothers and sisters in the workforce are not defiled by what the world does. What we saints do is be IN the world among them, as we see the saints before us, but we are not to be OF it. Yes we retreat to a refuge for a brief time of refreshment (many saints don't even have a refuge) and then we go back out. We are called to encourage and teach saints to be strong where God has them, therefore shining His truth to those who He might be calling (we don't know who that would be). What a joyous job to have and through it, we grow ourselves and mature, keeping our peace and joy that the Lord gives us through all this earthly life.
Amen, we are not to be content in sin! But we can be content in Christ even as the world around us is in their sin as it does not blemish us unless we partake of it. Us standing off and being apart from it may bring great conviction to others which is the hope.
Brother Jim's street sign says that Jesus is coming and so is tribulation. We are here to equip saints in the Word to get strong now so when it comes, we are all standing through it without wavering."
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Brother Jim is always telling people on the streets how the anabaptists of old ended up cloistering themselves together (when persecuted) and not going out to proclaim the gospel and we see the fruit of that today, they are unbiblical and getting worse as time goes on! We true believers need to make sure that we are not doing the same as that would be like hiding our light under a basket amen?
Jesus sends His people into the world as we see:
John 17:15-23
I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. [16] They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. [17] Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. [18] As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. [19] And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. [20] Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; [21] That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. [22] And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: [23] I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
The power of God is to keep us from the evil one while we are living in this world and that also goes for Christian women. We godly women should be training ourselves up to be able to stand boldly on the word, living and going about our business in this world and not allow the sins of the world to cripple us and send us into hiding, lest we be a reproach unto Christ by hiding our light under a basket. I know for a fact how much sin is in the world as brother Jim and I live in it 24/7 and by the grace of God, he gives us what we need in order to do His work. If we were to hide away from all sin, thinking that we are keeping ourselves pure from not viewing it or dealing with it, then we are denying Him and His power. (If that were the case, we would never leave our porch on the homestead, out in the country.) Also, there's a danger of a person thinking they are too pure to deal with the world, that's sinful also. I was that vile person in the world blasting my music, running around looking like a harlot, swearing like a sailor, getting drunk and being a loud belligerent woman. Today I am no better than I was then, I'm just different, a new creation and I don't deserve it any more now than I did then. I have the light of Christ that I want to shine to all those who were like brother Jim and I. We godly women are not spotted by the world that we live in, they are. We are not blemished by their sins, they are. The only time we are spotted or blemished is when we partake of their sins, amen?
If we tried to keep ourselves from the presence of any sin, then we would have to leave the world. Of course, we are not to participate and we all have our limits but through maturity and trials, we learn how to deal with them. There are brothers and sisters who have jobs that they need to learn how to deal with them as brother Jim and I did. He worked in sales, dealing with their unscrupulousness and I worked in the health care with the elderly, dealing with their worldly talk. Today our job (out on the street) contains much more of that but we learn how to live through this life, not in it or with it. Brother Jim teaches that if a job causes you to sin, you need to get a different one. There are brothers and sisters who are married to unbelievers and have to put up with many wicked trials in their marriages and they have to learn how to deal with it. God never promised us an escape from our situations, in fact in 1 Corinthians 7 we are told to stay where we're called (within reason of course) 1 Timothy 6 talks about slaves honoring their master whether they be of the world or of the faith, and we see if we can't be set free we are still free in Christ. Speaking of being set free, we had our own business for many years and we still had to deal with the sinfulness of the world in it, to varying degrees.
I share all this because we sisters must learn how to toughen up in this world to be able to exist. Some sisters will have to work a job until they are old, some will be married to an unbeliever who will make their life extremely difficult, some will be raising children and trying to teach them how to live godly within a wicked world, some will be yoked to family or other ungodly people until their last breath, some will have to endure many trials on the forefront of the spiritual battle etc. Our job as godly women is to be joyful and content wherever we are in this life as that is where God has called us and we must learn how to deal with the sins of the world because the world is who we are trying to reach and shine our light as godly witnesses.
Keeping ourselves pure is to battle our flesh against any temptations that arise, beating down any sin that comes forth and growing in the grace of God through this life to become a solider for Christ. Brother Jim is a soldier in street preaching and you can hear an audio he made about how people push back on amplification and why he does it.
I hope this was encouraging to you sisters, let us all train up for this worldly battle we are in and strive through it victoriously.
Peace and blessings to you in the name of our Savior,
Sister Deb
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