Sunday, October 21, 2012

Keep your hearts pure

"To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled" (Titus 1:15). 

In 1974 a research firm surveyed 35,000 young people from the ages of 16 to 25 to determine their values. The study revealed that only 31% viewed premarital relationships as morally wrong, compared to 52% in 1969. Opposition to abortion dropped from 58% to 45%. The proportion who considered living a clean moral life a very important value fell from 71% to 52%. That was 1974. What's it like today? I heard a statistic recently that 90% of all high schoolers are no longer virgins by the time they leave high school. Today many of the television shows that professing Christians are glued to, advocate and defend promiscuous living, adultery, homosexuality and a whole host of other perversions. What was considered 30 years ago as pornography, believe it or not, is on our television screens advertising everything from lingerie to perfume. 

When we live in a society that celebrates perversion how can Christians keep their hearts and minds pure? First we must purify our minds "by the washing of water by the word" (Eph. 5:23). We need to take a bath in the word of God everyday to keep from being desensitized by this world. In addition, we must turn to God to search our hearts and confess those areas where we have defiled ourselves (1 John 1:9 Psalm 51). And with a heart filled with the word and cleansed by the blood of Jesus we must "abstain from all appearance of evil." Keep your hearts pure. 

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