P u r i f y O u r s e l v e s

Therefore, since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.

- 2 Corinthians 7:1

Every painful experience in our lives is an opportunity for enemy of God (they can only use pain, they can’t use joy) to gain access to our hearts. Each hurt sticks in our heart, like a nail, opens a door to the enemy to talk to us through. These hurts build up over time and effect and shape our lives. Over time they can gain control of that area.

Picture yourself walking through a store and a person walking by you bumps into you very hard. You look at them and they look at you and you see the laugh and they keep going. This immediately can cause us to feel angry for the injustice and their thinking it is funny. Now picture a person who was there and saw it happen, and they come to you and say,

”That was so rude and disrespectful, I would never let anyone do that to me, you should call the police and press charges.”

This is how the enemy works, they are just like that person standing there, but they use your voice in your mind when they talk, so you just think it’s your own thoughts. The enemy will say everything they can to use that bad experience to get you to react as sinful as possible to it. Then next time someone hurts you, they begin again with,

“This has to stop, you are tired of being pushed around, you are not going to take it anymore. Remember that last time that someone bumped into you and laughed? It’s time to fight back with anger.”

We begin to build upon each experience until bitterness has set it. Bitterness ruins our lives.

When we come to Christ and we pray to be forgiven, and to follow Him as a believer, we are given God’s Holy Spirit. But we all know that even though we may of had an experience of joy and relief at the time of that new birth, we know we still have all the same bitterness inside of us. Some of it may have been taken away by God when we first come to Him. Sometimes it is not taken out of us right away.