February 25
“Therefore having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” 2 Corinthians 7:1
If anyone thinks that fearing the Lord is an Old Testament concept that doesn’t apply to Christians today, then think again about what this verse is saying. Also read 2 Corinthians 5:11, immediately after Paul tells us that we must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, “Therefore knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men…” Paul indicates to us that the fear of the Lord was one of the primary motivators to him for ministry. Fearing the Lord is not a bad thing, but a very healthy thing if we are to overcome sin and walk in a manner worthy of Him, bearing fruit for Him.
Note the similarity of Paul’s admonition in 2 Cor. 7:1 to James’ admonition in James 4:8. The concept, the command, to cleanse ourselves occurs in both verses. James says we are to cleanse ourselves, and Paul tells us the same. This is a major part of drawing near to God. We need to put off the old. We need to repent of our sins. We need to put away from us the things that make us stumble. We need to stop doing the things that are evil. We need to stop letting our hearts love and be attached to what is evil.
Our hearts will not do this. Our hearts have sort of like sticky tentacles that attach themselves to whatever we allow them to. We have control over what we let our hearts desire. We can allow them to become attached to earthly pleasures, to earthy relationships, ideas of romance and love, money and possessions, status and power. Things that we allow our minds to focus on and become interested in, these things our hearts will desire and become attached to.
But we can control what our hearts desire. We can analyze what are our deepest wants and needs (thinking about our wildest fantasies is a good clue as to what we really desire), and we can eliminate and change those desires that are evil or not the kinds of things the Lord would have us become attached to. Changing what we love, changing our fantasies, changing what are our deepest desires, is a large part, I believe, of cleansing ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit. But this is hard work and takes time just to understand what our deepest desires are, not to mention change them.
We have to spend time searching our own hearts to understand what our deepest desires are before we can ask the Lord to uproot all earthly, unworthy desires and replace them with desires only for Him, His righteousness, and His purposes. This takes a very deliberate effort. You can start by spending a half hour writing down your greatest desires in this life and the life to come. What do you really want? If you could have anything, anything at all, what would it be? Are any of those things clearly not what God wants, things that are prohibited in scripture? Start by asking the Lord to remove from you any desires for evil things. Keep praying this prayer, the more often the better, until your desires for evil things are gone. The goal is complete elimination of any desire for evil. It is shocking, when we really stop to think about it, how we can let evil thoughts dwell unchecked and unchallenged in our conscious and subconscious. Seek the Lord for complete freedom from this love of evil. Ask Him to reorient your mind and heart on the things that are good and holy and pleasing to Him. Ask Him to give you a heart that only desires His will and His goodness. This removal of a desire for evil is a critical first step in purifying our hearts and cleansing ourselves from all defilements of the flesh and spirit.
Tomorrow we will talk about uprooting desires for things that are not clearly evil but which may distract us from finding and fulfilling God’s best for us.