Living a Lily White Life

Purity. We hear it all the time: "You should remain pure for your future husband or wife." But what does that even mean? And why would my future spouse care?

Purity often seems like a sterile rule, forced upon us for no apparent reason except to make us miserable while everyone else is having fun. This notion is reinforced every day on TV and in movies and songs, not to mention in the lives of our friends. Many people mock innocence; purity is something to be ridiculed and avoided.

When you finally meet your true Prince, Jesus Christ, purity starts to make sense. When you decide to give yourself to Him, your heart, soul, mind and body, you want them to be pure. You want to be set apart for Him - a soft, pure white lily surrounded by the dirt of the world. But if you aren't, don't despair. He will make you lily white, if you let Him!

True purity is not something that we can achieve on our own. It is so much more than waiting for your spouse. True purity is complete set-apartness for Jesus, and it can only come when we allow Him to shape us into His likeness.

Maybe you feel like you have been so bad that you can never be made pure. Maybe you're thinking, "I can never get clean, so what's the point of even trying?" Maybe you feel good with your life the way it is, and you don't want to change. Or maybe you're just feeling lazy. These are just EXCUSES! The truth is, you are never too broken for Jesus. Your life will not be perfect if Jesus is not the most important part of it. We need to stop making excuses (and I'm speaking to myself just as much as to anyone else) and start working on our relationship with Jesus.

It's not easy. There is so much going on in our lives: school, work, sports, friends, dating... the list can go on forever. And then there is the emotional baggage that we carry everywhere that also weighs us down. When is there time to work on another relationship?

Jesus does not live at the frantic pace of our world. He is a still, small voice that is easily drowned out by the confusion and clamor of life. So to truly discover Him as our Prince and know Him as our lover, we must become like the princesses in fairy tales who leave everything behind to follow the one they love.

We cannot stay where we are and go with Jesus.

In my next post, I'll give you some practical tips from Leslie Ludy's book Authentic Beauty to help you (and myself) leave behind everything else to follow Jesus.

Until then,

Pam