How Does Holiness Act? Part 4: Purity in Thought

How Does Holiness Act? Part 4: Purity in Thought
Romans 13.14
Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

James 1.14-15
[B]ut each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. 15Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

So far we have talked about how we should act in holiness. Nevertheless, acting holy is impossible if we do not keep a mindset of holiness. Christ is very clear on this matter. He says in Mark 7.21-23 that "from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.' " We tend to think that the temptations around us are what make us give in to sin, but they can no more make us sin than a glass of wine sitting on the table can force itself into a man's mouth; it is within our own thoughts that we determine our sins.

To understand this, we need to understand a little bit about biology and, at least how current theory perceives it, the body's interaction with the soul. Humans are a trinity, just as God is. We have a spirit, a mind, and a body. All three of these work together in a two-way, procedural process. The body takes inputs through the senses, feeds the information into the brain, which interprets it, then feeds it somehow into the spirit. This is, at least at the present moment, how we believe the process works. That is how input is received. Output works the opposite way. The spirit, receiving input, interacts with the brain to make a decision, then sends that decision back to the body. That is called output.

Now, this is quite important, for if we can understand this, then we can understand how sin works. You see, it is not the brain or the body(unless a physical or mental disorder is present) that makes the decisions. The old adage of "I just couldn't help myself" is invalid. You and I CAN control our actions. Our thoughts can choose what we want to DO with that input and what we want to output. It therefore becomes crucial that we keep a filter in our minds to guard against that which would be unholy. There are serious consequences to allowing polluted thoughts invade our minds. James mentions this in James 1 when he says that "each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death." Notice the synonymous philosophy of both Jesus and James--it is our thoughts that cause sin. Unholiness is a choice, and that choice is made by how we choose to act.

Thus, if we keep impure thoughts, the temptations to act upon them will be incredibly overbearing. That is why Christ commands us to keep holy minds. For example, Jesus says in Matthew 5.28 "that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." Lust is an excellent example of how keeping unholy thoughts will cause one to sin. If we keep these sorts of sinful desires within us, Satan will slowly twist them into seeming honest. He will say things like, "It's alright to look at her; it's only natural" or "That white lie is alright; you did it to prevent pain" or "It's alright to do that; everyone who want to reach the top at this company has to do something they're not proud of." There are literally thousands of examples that Satan bombards us with everyday. What is the trick? Keep a pure mind. Next time we will see three key ways we can keep a pure mind: the Word of God, prayer, and relying on other Christians to help us stay holy.

For now, let's examine our hearts--are we keeping them pure with holiness? Are we allowing sinful thoughts to linger and grow until they don't seem so bad? If so, then we need to come to God and lay it down to Jesus. We may not have even acted upon them, but accepting them in our thoughts means we have done them already. Beloved, even if you are not struggling with temptation through unholy thoughts, pray to ask God to help you keep a pure mind. This is a crucial part of holiness. We need to make our thoughts holy--mirroring the thoughts of Christ in everything we do. Amen.

With love in Christ,



Austin Aldrich