The other week I tucked my Bible and a couple of other really big books (warm smile) into my bag and asked God’s grace to teach God’s Word to a few of God’s women. I titled the study PURE, because this is what Christ Jesus calls us to become. We do not begin that way and there will be no perfection in our purity this side of forever, but if we are rooted in Him, we are headed toward becoming just like Him.

Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the LORD! Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart, who also do no wrong, but walk in his ways!

Psalm 119:1-3

To live pure, blameless, upright, holy lives our knowledge of the Lord must increase and our understanding of and desire for the will of God must grow. We all have need to learn what Jesus meant when He said this…

Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. John 4:34

We must echo His Words with our own lives.

It is difficult, and we know it. There is a tendency within us to let the teachings of men seep into our minds in a way that causes us to live for the principles of this world rather than as captives to Christ. Worldly philosophies prohibit our understanding of the Gospel and Scriptural truth, and these deceptive philosophies also prevent us from understanding our lives in relation to the Gospel by undermining the principles of God.

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

Colossians 2:8

We are to be captive to nothing else save Jesus. The Lord’s good command to us is for our holiness and purity that the name of God might be renowned and honored in the earth, that we may guide the lost toward Jesus by our ready verbal testimony and the godly living found within each of our own lives. Without spiritual discipline our courses tend to drift. Without the grace of discipline, we are far too easily tossed by the waves of false doctrine. Without strong faith and right understanding of Scripture, we can almost expect to be tossed around in this world falling prey to this or that false teaching.

It is only with a sober mind for the purpose of prayer, a heart of understanding, and thinking renewed by truth that we are able to live pleasing before our God. All of this is just a simple encouragement to keep walking on with Jesus, so that our roots may go down  deep… far out toward that stream of Living Water that our lives may be pure and pleasing to Him.

Captives to Christ are the only ones that are ever really… truly free.