PuritySample

Purity as a Principle

No doubt the least visited discussion topic is purity. Can you remember the last time you had a good conversation about it? Think about radio and television talk shows. Has any Producer dedicated a show to this subject? And what about church sermons? Can you recall a good window-rattling sermon on purity and its cause and effect?

Jesus wanted us to consider purity. So the sixth beatitude of His Sermon is, Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. The very reason He wanted us to think about purity is why we would rather not. Purity takes some mental concentration and dedication. He wanted us to be dedicated to God's will and purpose.

Dedication to an unseen God, who rewards us in private, is outside our realm of experience. That makes it difficult for us to concentrate on spiritual activity. Yet this is the very activity that lets us "see" our invisible God.

Purity is to be free from taint or pollution. It is to have unmixed desires. In this verse, it does not mean you must be sinless before you can see God. You must simply want to be pure in thought, word, and deed. When you want to "clean up your act", you have made a start on this beatitude. You will become pure in the full sense only after God himself removes your impure thoughts and acts. God purifies you. Here Jesus teaches that your heart - your thoughts, feelings and emotions - must concentrate on meeting God. Knowing and pleasing God needs to be so important to you that it becomes your main desire. When you make this your priority, God will come to you. He will reveal himself to you so dramatically it is as if you have actually seen him. Your face-to-face encounter with God proves his reality and nature. "Seeing" God and knowing him as Abba - your Daddy-is the blessing promised in this beatitude.

A. Purity, principle of receiving God's blessing (The Blessed are those who are pure).

1. Reading Deuteronomy 28:1-14, you see a list of pronouncements God made concerning how He would bless His children, the Israelites. But attached to these blessings is a condition. Read v. 14, what is this condition?
2. How does this condition demonstrate a pure life?
3. Study the areas God directs His blessings in v.3-12. What picture do you get of the nature of God's blessings to Believers?
4. Whereas God sees the blessed as those who are pure, the world today sees those who have material things as those who are blessed.

B. Purity, principle to seeing God

1. From the comments above and your understanding of Matthew 5:8,how is purity a means to seeing God?
2. Does this mean sinless perfection? How?
3. What kind of God would He be if God were to allow the impure to see Him?
4. What did God require of the Israelites before coming into His presence? Read Exodus 19:10-11.
5. If God were to come down to your campus like He did in the days of Moses at Mount Sinai, what do you think He would require students to consecrate themselves from?
6. One of the unique attributes of God is that He is omnipresent, meaning that He is everywhere at the same time. This being the case, It means that God is on your campus now demanding you to consecrate yourselves as He did to the Israelites in Moses' day. How can you as an individual and Fellowship group help the campus to meet God's demand of purity?