What do you think of when you hear the word “purity”? What exactly makes something pure?
Take just a moment and answer those for yourself while I talk about one of my loves.
Coffee!
Indeed that’s no secret around BNC. Most coffee nuts like me know that one key to a great cup of joe is pure, filtered water. The purer the water is the better the coffee. Purified water is free from adulteration or contamination. Getting purified water from my kitchen sink doesn’t happen by itself. The water needs to be directed through a filter and the filter removes the junk that causes a disastrous cup of coffee.
So several years ago, I took steps to prevent just such a disaster. I installed a water filter and made myself a very happy coffee drinker. When I think of purity, I think of the wondrous feeling that the first sip of coffee gives me. Oh, there is simply nothing like it!
Water isn’t the only thing that needs filtered. We have air filters in our furnaces to remove contaminates before they find their way into our homes. In our cars we have oil filters that scrub the lifeblood of your engine and remove impurities.
Before I go deeper with my automobile analogy, I need to admit that there exists no mechanical expertise in this body. Automotive purists – forgive me!
Automobiles have an air intake system that moves air into the engine. A car’s engine requires the right mixture of air and fuel to make the wheels spin. The output power of a car’s engine depends on its ability to take in air and fuel. The more intake, the more output. (Thank you Wikipedia!)
But that’s not all.
The quality of the air and fuel coming in must be clean – as pure as possible. Now, have you ever looked at the front of your car after driving a country road after dark? It’s a bug cemetery! Imagine all that making its way to the internal workings of your engine! As I said, I’m not a mechanic, but I reckon there are really good reasons that cars have air filters to prevent that from happening. What your car intakes directly effects the quality and efficiency of what it puts out. Filtering out the bugs and other air contaminates allows the engine in your automobile to run efficiently and prevents all that little junk from becoming clogged and lodged inside your engine.
As Christians, we are instructed to live a Spirit led life, one that is controlled by God.
Romans 8:9 But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you.
I want to take the next two devotions and look at living a Spirit controlled life through the analogy of a filter. What if we looked at the Spirit of God within us as a filter? This doesn’t change the nature by which we are controlled by the Spirit of God, but simply places His role in terms that we may not otherwise consider.
Do you think it reasonable to say we live a “Spirit Filtered” life?
Absolutely! And next devotion we will explore what that’s like.
