Pure or corrupted?

Do you use water filters? The drinking water quality at my home depends on one!  When my well pumps pushes water to my home, it flows first through that filter where impurities are removed; things that would ultimately sicken me.  It is  necessary that the filter have integrity. Even a small flaw would allow tainted water to flow to the taps in my house. It is programmed to cleanse itself periodically, so that it remains functional. Unseen, but important, that filter silently does its work all the time.

God, the Spirit, renews our minds, equipping us with filters that allow us to detect and reject false teaching, filters that help us to discard thoughts that would lead us to sin, filters that give us the ability to discern right and wrong. Are your mental and spiritual filters intact, with integrity, doing their work in your life?  Paul writes to us with this statement - "To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted. They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good." (Titus 1:15-16, NIV)

In order to best understand that passage, we need some context. Titus was dealing with Jewish teachers who were ‘corrupting’ the Gospel of Christ by mixing in their religious traditions. They were attempting to make themselves acceptable to God with scrupulous attention to their behaviors but in their hyper-legalist minds, everything became ‘sin.’  They created arbitrary rules about what foods a Christian should eat, created prohibitions about sex and marriage that were beyond what God taught, made keeping holy days a prime concern. 

Because their minds were ‘corrupted’ by these ideas they saw sin in everything, were incapable of seeing God’s gifts for what they were.  In their supposed pursuit of holiness they actually became divisive and argumentative, those who destroyed the unity of the Church and revealed that they did not really know God, but only a tradition about Him!

How can we know if are filters are intact, dealing with the right things?  We look no further than how we are acting. 

Are we loving God deeply?
Are we loving others intensely?
Do we make Him our priority?

Are our relationships healthy, without unresolved issues, forgiveness freely offered?

Titus had to deal with people whose filters were corrupted by religious traditions. Our filters will be corrupted by the culture in which we live when we are not informed by Scripture and alive to the Spirit. One example is the emphasis on Self that taught to us from our infancy. We are told to find our own way, to protect our individualism, to find our bliss.  “And, what’s wrong with that,” you might be asking?  

 Jesus asks us to die to Self, to give ourselves to Him as Lord, to find our best life within the Body of Christ (the Church) where we fit into His larger plan in mutual cooperation and submission.  If the filters of our mind are corrupted by the idea that the only way to be fulfilled, to be completely happy, is to ‘do our own thing,’ we will not be able to properly sort out the right from wrong.

Hear the invitation in the word from the Word for this day. Live close to the Lord, open to the Spirit, for the renewal of your mind. Then, you will be able to know and do His will. "And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect." (Romans 12:1-2, NLT)

Lord, renew my mind.

Restore the filters.

Grant discernment and understanding.

In Jesus’ Name. Amen

_________________

Change My Heart Oh God

Change my heart oh God

Make it ever true

Change my heart oh God

May I be like You

You are the potter

I am the clay

Mould me and make me

This is what I pray

Change my heart oh God

Make it ever true

Change my heart oh God

May I be like You

Eddie Espinosa

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