Monday, January 27

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How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word.

—Psalm 119:9

I’d been away from home for only a few months when the Great Laundry Fiasco of 1999 occurred. And I should mention right up front that I knew better—my mother had raised me with higher standards. But I was short on quarters and short on time, and what can I say? It seemed like the most efficient option at the time.

But let me tell you: it wasn’t worth it. Those two little red socks turned all the whites in the entire load a hideous shade of carnation pink.

I learned an important lesson that day on the finer points of laundry sorting, and all these years later, the experience remains an effective metaphor about purity. The reality is, in both laundry and life, one object of impurity, no matter how small, can contaminate the whole batch. On that fateful day in the basement of my dorm, it didn’t matter how many white socks were in the load; none of them rubbed off on the red socks. But the red socks wreaked havoc on everything else.

Living a life of purity isn’t something that happens to us automatically the moment we become Christians. Yes, we are declared pure in God’s sight when we accept his salvation and forgiveness. In 1 John 1:7, we read that “the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” But if we want to live a life of purity, it doesn’t just happen; it’s something we have to choose. As with each load of laundry, we need to be careful what we put in to our eyes and our minds, since whatever we invite in has the power to either contaminate us or keep us pure.

We often think of purity in the Christian life as a series of don’ts, and we’re not the first to have such a mind-set. Each generation has had its list of taboo behaviors that set the pure apart from the impure. In Jesus’ day, the Pharisees propagated their unending regulations for pure living: Don’t work on the Sabbath. Don’t eat before washing your hands. Don’t have dinner with sinners. In my grandfather’s generation, the guideline for right living went something like this: “Don’t drink, don’t chew, don’t go with girls who do.” Over the years, Christians have heard various other instructions: Don’t play cards. Don’t watch certain movies. Don’t say certain words.

And while it’s certainly important not to engage in behaviors that would prevent us from living like Christ or hold us back from becoming the people God wants us to be, if we limit our definition of purity to only what we don’t do, we miss a big part of the vision God has for us to live pure lives.

When Scripture talks about purity, it’s really about reflecting the character of God. He is the very definition of all that is good and right and beautiful. Purity doesn’t just refer to what we avoid; it’s also about choosing what is pure—through our actions, our thoughts, and our speech.

So when it comes to what we think and say and do, what will we choose? The way of the world or the way of purity? The Swiss bishop Francis de Sales said that purity “has this peculiar excellence above the other virtues, that it preserves both soul and body fair and unspotted.” If we allow sin to creep in, however, the consequences may be steep—indeed, steeper than a load full of pink socks.

What do you think it would look like to live a life of purity? Is there a seemingly small sin that is threatening to creep in to your life right now?

—Stephanie Rische