Purify your hearts

It is amazing how many imperatives there are in Scripture. Now that I am looking for them they are everywhere.

Today I was struck by the James' command: "Purify your hearts." Good thing he said it and not some hapless preacher, or he would have been accused of works righteousness. "Only God can purify hearts!" would be the vehement objection. Notwithstanding, James puts it this way, so we may too.

The Lord has given us means by which to purify our hearts. One is to "go out from their midst and be separate from them; touch no unclean thing" (2 Corinthians 6:17). Thereby we can "cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God" (7:1). Let each man wrestle in his heart with the meaning of these words in his life. For me, I have decided I need to be careful of movies and music that quietly eat away at the life of the Spirit in me. Evan Roberts of the Welsh revival of 1905 went around Wales with this advice for people hungry for more of God: "Get rid of everything doubtful in your life."

Another purifier is trials. James considers them such gifts that he tells us to "count it all joy" when we encounter one. Whatever trial you are undergoing at this moment (take quick inventory of your feelings; they are red flags), be grateful because if it weren't for this to remind you to resist in faith, you would drift, drift, drift away from Christ. The continuous application of external pressures forces all your heart's junk to the surface where you can deal with it.

This, of course, is the theory behind progressive resistance exercise. I read online:

"Resistance training is any exercise that causes the muscles to contract against an external resistance, with the expectation of increases in strength, tone, mass, and/or endurance. . . . The overload is constantly increased to facilitate adaptation. . . . The body adapts to exercise and needs to be constantly challenged in order to continue to grow and change."

Replace the word "body" with "spirit" and this sounds like it could have been lifted from a Christian counseling manual.

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