Addressing the Purity Movement

When I turned 16, my mom asked me if I wanted a purity ring, and I said yes. Like everyone other girl who wore one, I proudly slipped it onto the 4th finger of my left hand. For that first week, I could hardly look at it without smiling somewhere deep inside of myself. This was my commitment to my future husband, to love him well even before I met him. It was my testimony that I was living before God's eyes, and following the path He had shown me. It wasn't political, or cultural, or done to please people; it was something precious that I felt only Jesus and I truly understood.

That's what I saw in my ring.

It wasn't until years later that I came to realize that wasn't the message I was sending to the rest of the world. With a silver band on my left hand, I was an unspoken part of a broader Christian cultural movement, with ideas I didn't necessarily want to promote. 

Please know that I am in no way condemning the heart of the movement in Christianity to be pure; I think that staying pure is undeniably something we are called to as followers of Jesus. Please also don't misunderstand what I'm saying about purity rings; I have absolutely nothing against them, and I am not trying to persuade you to take yours off your left hand if you wear one. It's a valuable expression of commitment and trust and I don't mean to diminish any significance it has. My goal in writing is not to convince you to follow the same route I took in approaching this topic, because I don't believe there's a right or wrong way to wear a ring or show a commitment. But I do hope to encourage you to think about these issues, not as something that some Christian girls do "just because", but as an act of worship to the Lover of your soul.

Why the Purity Movement Concerns Me:

Men and women are both called to be pure in thought and deed. But if you look at this cultural movement, you'll see that purity is stressed much more for girls. (No, that is not meant to be a feminist statement.) That is not to say that young men aren't encouraged to be pure; there are certainly Bible studies and support groups dedicated to furthering that idea in their lives. But these gatherings are usually called something along the lines of "Being a Man after God's Heart". That's the heart of what purity should be, for both genders. The problem with stressing physical purity so much is that we can lose sight of why we're being pure. I think we need to be called to be women after God's heart, not just girls who choose to dress modestly and not sin. A pure heart should be a heart of "do's", not "don'ts". Purity should be about glorifying God, honoring Him, and acting as His vessel, not just a list of things we shouldn't do. The question should not be how far is too far, when it comes to physical boundaries, but how far can we go to glorify Him in this area of our lives?  By focusing on physical purity and so often ignoring the heart of why we seek it, I think it underscores the false perception that women's worth is found in their bodies. 

I'm also bothered by the emphasis on sexual sin, and the idea of being "used". For those who have fallen, God offers forgiveness and redemption completely!  But the movement's underlying ideas tell a different story. If you have fallen, you're damaged goods; you're tainted and you haven't been pure. I get the perception that every other sin is forgivable, but not that one. And I know that's not the way God sees it!  I believe that God will forgive any sinner who repents, and that the blood of Jesus was enough to cover for any sin!  It hurts so much to think that someone could freely enter into the work of the cross, become a new creation by the grace of God, and still feel condemnation from the body of Christ because of past mistakes that no longer define them.

Why I'm Writing About This:

I hope I'm not condemning in writing this. There are certainly leaders who advocate purity while focusing on the heart of it as an act of worship, like Leslie Ludy with the Ellerslie Mission Society, and I am inspired by them. My goal is not to put down, but to hopefully start you on a thinking track about this subject in your own life. 

I also wanted to write to clarify that the Real Christianity purity wall is not a part of this purity movement. The goal of these posts is to hopefully point you back to God's heart on these issues, not to give you a list of actions to avoid. 

Finally, I want us as a body to be equipped to handle the issues mentioned above, whether in our own lives or the lives of others. I want this to empower you in some way to fight the perception that your worth lies in your body; to love those who have fallen, and reach out to them without condemnation. 

When I was 16, I put a ring on my left hand. But over the past month, my eyes have been opened to these issues and I realized these ideas were not something I wanted to be a part of. 

So the week before I turned 18, I took off my ring and put it on my right hand. 

Today, I do not wear a purity ring; I wear what I call a signet ring (Haggai 2:23), as a testimony that I am a bond servant of Jesus Christ and I will follow Him all the days of my life. There's nothing sacred about whether you wear a ring, or which hand it's on; for me, it's just a secret reminder between my heart and His of who I am in His eyes, and who He has called me to be. He is the one my heart loves; I will not let Him go. 

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*Concerns with the Purity Movement were inspired by this article: http://tolovehonorandvacuum.com/2016/01/purity-culture-10-things-that-scare-me/  I do not necessarily endorse the way this was written, or all of the content on this blog.

More than Existence

"I'd die for you,

That's easy to say,

We all have a list of people that we would take

A bullet for them, a bullet for you

A bullet for everybody in this room

But there don't seem to be any bullets coming through."

- Twenty-One Pilots, Ride

I am going to open this devotional by expressing my love for Twenty-One Pilots. :)  I love the rawness of their lyrics, the variety of their music, and the meaning behind what they have to say. And I love this line of their song Ride because I think it describes so much of the struggle in the life of the westernized church.

I think we can all say that, in our day to day lives, there are no bullets coming through; no one is actively trying to take our lives for what we believe. A friend of mine recently pointed out that some churches focus so much on dying for the gospel that we forget to live for it.

So the question I want to ask you today is, in this season where no bullets are flying through, are you living or merely existing as a Christian?

Are you seeking God out, or simply hoping that He'll show up?  Is your desire to know Him, or to just get by and make it to heaven someday?

As adolescents, we're all in a really interesting season of discovering who we are. That season is intriguing, but it can be so painful because it brings with it the realization that we don't fully know who we are yet. It was so hard for me to admit that I was in the place of not knowing, because that season of life came for me after I had re-dedicated my life to Jesus. As a Christian who wanted to be on fire for Him, I was supposed to know who I was. I kept going back to the church cliche, that your identity is not in who you are, but in whose you are. It's a beautiful idea, but that doesn't mean it always resonates. Yes, I was God's. But I was still acting differently around different groups of people, to the point where I wasn't sure which one was the "real" me. I continually found myself putting on masks, without even realizing it.

I think it's most painful to wear a mask in the place of worship, and communion with God. Because, if anywhere, that is where there is no condemnation and that is where we can truly be ourselves. And a mask causes so much separation; not because God can't see through it to us, but because so often, we can't see through it to Him.

I'm going to be vulnerable right now and tell you that I don't like coming to God in brokenness, especially in corporate worship. It feels so unholy to bring your struggles before Him when you're supposed to be praising Him, so I tend to push them aside, and put on the mask of pretending to want Him, and pretending to believe that He is enough for me. Most times, I do want Him... but sometimes, it doesn't feel that way. And I leave wondering why I didn't encounter Him that time.

God has so much in store for our lives... but so often, we are content to simply exist behind a mask, because it is so much more comfortable than stepping onto the unknown frontier of a life with God.

Recently, I started reading a book called TrueFaced. It's an incredible, real, raw perspective on identity in Christ, and it has some earth-shattering truths. The authors write that at the root of wearing masks lies the need to hide. When Adam and Eve sinned, their first reaction was to run and hide from God in shame. So often, we're ashamed to be our true selves, and admit the messiness of our struggles to God. We make ourselves believe that we can still have the fullness of what He wants for us, while merely existing behind a mask.

This statement in the book is what caught my attention the most: You will never be more righteous than you are right now.

What??  Where did that even come from?  I'm broken, and disconnected, and so far from the fullness of what God has for me. Of course I'm going to be more righteous down the road; this isn't all there is.

But that's assuming that your righteousness comes from what you do. And if that's true, then the work of the cross is meaningless.

The miracle of God's love is that we are not saved by our own works or our own attempts at righteousness; when He looks at us, He sees the righteousness of Christ, and we can never add to that, or take away from it. If you are in Christ, you are in His righteousness, and that is how God sees you. That is your identity. There may be other facets of your personality that you're trying to work through, but that is who you are; you are not what you have done, but what Jesus has done for you.

He has freed you to walk beyond your masks. He has enabled you to have more than a mere existence. He has given you the chance to live.

There are not any bullets coming through; in this season, He may not be asking you to die for Him yet. But, in Him, you have the chance to more-than-exist; you have the opportunity live. Are you willing to?

~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~ 

Worship Song: 

"Love is Moving",
by Audrey Assad

Chronicles: A Promise

Part of me feels a little bad saying that I have a least favorite book of the Bible, but I would have to say that for most of my life, 1 and 2 Chronicles was nowhere on my list of favorite books to read. It’s a bunch of genealogies and lists and repeats from Samuel and Kings. Let’s just say that I was not exactly thrilled when my last Old Testament class before Christmas was on Chronicles. When I saw the assigned reading, I commented to my classmate that nothing gets me in the Christmas spirit like reading Chronicles!

That week, I realized that I have approached Chronicles the wrong way for pretty much my entire Christian life. I didn’t see its purpose or its value, except maybe to be able to compare with Kings and see that the two mostly match, except that David’s sin with Bathsheba is not included in Chronicles, and Manasseh repenting from prison is not included in Kings.

The book of Chronicles (it was broken into first and second when it was translated into Greek and didn’t fit on one scroll anymore) is the last book of the Hebrew canon. Chronologically, this seems a little odd. Ezra and Nehemiah come directly before Chronicles, even though they record the events that would have happened directly after. So why is it at the end? And why the differences between Chronicles and Kings? And why do we need the same history twice?

I think we start to find the answers to these questions when we look at the audience of Chronicles and its time of writing. Chronicles was written to post-exilic Israel by someone returning from the exile. (given what we know of Ezra, it would make a lot of sense if he was the writer.) It was written for people who had experienced seventy years in Babylon/Medo-Persia, and then returned to their home. These were people who had access to the Torah, the Prophets, and the writings (including Samuel and Kings), so they would have been familiar with the stories recorded in Chronicles. This would suggest that the book of Chronicles is intended to serve a different purpose than that of Samuel and Kings.

I always find it interesting to try and get into the heads of the people reading, writing, and experiencing the events they record for us. So maybe we should try getting a feel for where those returning from the exile were coming from.

After 70 years in exile, the prophesy of Jeremiah had come to pass, and Cyrus the Great had told the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. It was a project that was met with opposition from those around them, but finally, the Temple was complete. They had a High Priest from the line of Aaron, his name was Joshua, meaning “Jehovah Saves!” They had a political leader, Zerubbabel, from the line of David. They had Ezra, teaching and leading their nation, instructing them in the ways of their God. They had Nehemiah, who was in a place of favor with the King and was given permission to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem. They had prophets, exhorting them and calling them to serve God whole-heartedly.

In many ways, the story sounds very similar to the story we’re told in Chronicles, when Solomon builds and dedicates the Temple of the Lord. People gathered to worship, the King prayed, and the glory of God filled the temple!

In Ezra, the people return, they rebuild the temple, there is sacrifice and prayer, a priest and a political leader together call the people to return to Yahweh…. And the glory of God doesn’t fill the temple. It’s a detail that is glaringly absent from the narrative. And as the young people rejoice that they have a temple, the elders wept.

No, more accurately, they wailed. Their cry was so loud that people miles away could hear. No cloud, no fire, no glory. In fact, the temple itself was a dismal disappointment. Zerubbabel’s temple was not even half the size of Solomon’s, and couldn’t hold a candle to the splendor of the original. In fact, it looked more like a military fortress. And those who could remember the original temple were overwhelmed with sorrow!

The prophets spoke of a greater temple, one filled with splendor and glory, and a city called GOD IS THERE.

Did this mean that God didn’t make good on His promise? Had He been faithless to Israel?

These would have been the questions in the minds of the readers as they approached the book of Chronicles. And I think Chronicles is subtly pointing that out through little hints that are really easy to miss, that Israel was still anticipating further fulfillment of these prophesies. And as the book builds this anticipation, it points toward the New Testament.

They had a temple, but they didn’t have the true dwelling place of God. They didn’t have Immanuel, God with man. They had an empty temple…. And it almost seems like Chronicles is rubbing salt in the wound, because the big story, the climax of the book, is the Shekinah Glory – God’s presence filling Solomon’s temple. David’s reign builds up to this, and every King after Solomon is weighed by the standard of how they treat the Temple. I think the emphasis on the temple was to point to God’s past faithfulness and present grace, and a reminder to anticipate something greater in the future. There were still prophesies to be fulfilled! They were in the stage of  already, and not yet.

And those tedious genealogies? I think Chronicles is pointing toward the fulfillment of something greater than just the return from Babylonian exile. If Chronicles were just about the Kings of Judah, there wouldn’t be much point in tracing the geneaologies much further than David, and thus bring the focus of the book to God’s faithfulness to the Davidic Covenant. But it doesn’t stop with David. It would make sense, in telling the story of the entire nation of Israel, not just the southern kingdom who returned from exile, to trace the geneaologies back to Judah, thus focusing on God’s covenant with Jacob, the building of a nation in the promise land, and the promise that the scepter would not depart from Judah. But it goes further than that, and it doesn’t just focus on Judah, but on Levi as well, reminding the reader of the Mosaic Covenant. It would make sense to go back through Abraham and focus on the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant, but again, it goes further than that. The writer of Chronicles starts with Adam, leaving the reader to anticipate the fulfillment of God’s covenant with Adam and His covenant faithfulness to mankind. It’s like when an author begins their book by giving some obscure family history, or the origin of some sort of tension (like Sir Walter Scott beginning Ivanhoe with a discussion of the English language and the tensions between the Franks and Saxons, leaving the reader anticipating an ending that brings about some sort of resolution or fulfillment of that conflict.)

After building the anticipation of the fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant, and finally, God’s promise to Adam and Eve that the Serpent’s head would be crushed, the author of Chronicles leaves us with a cliff-hanger. We’re told that Cyrus allows the exiles to return. Wait, what? That doesn’t fulfill any of the covenants! And then the gospel of Matthew starts out with… a geneaology tracing all the way back to Adam, and then we are told of a Messiah, from the line of David, whose name means Jehovah Saves, and who is our High Priest. The last book in the Jewish Bible builds the anticipation of fulfillment yet to come, and a reminder to see God’s promise and God’s presence, through the history of the Temple. And then we have the New Testament, when God’s presence dwells inside of His followers.

And at the end of the New Testament, we’re reminded once again that there are prophecies yet to be fulfilled.

And for the first time in my life, Chronicles got me in the Christmas spirit. The reminder of God’s promise and God’s presence felt like a cliff-hanger, leaving me excited for the next chapter.

A Renewed Mind

Have you ever gotten emotional?

Hopefully the answer is a given; emotion, especially as women, is a prevalent factor in our lives. These little feelings have the power to transform our entire day, all on their own. When I took Human Anatomy a few years ago, one of the most interesting parts was the study of what emotions were. Medically, they're just a collection of chemicals and enzymes released from the brain, often due to hormonal factors. My first question was immediately: "Can you have them removed???"

Emotional experiences can feel beautiful, but they can also be painful, annoying, and depressing. More than that, we often give them the ability to control us and the way we live.

This morning, I heard a message that, for the first time, made me realize that I didn't have to continue giving them that power over me.

When we are redeemed by the cross, Paul says we become a new creation and, in Romans 12, that we are transformed by the renewing of our minds. Sometimes, I think it's hard to let that change take over. I realized for the first time today that I had been trying to live out the Christian life, but I wasn't allowing my mind to be renewed. I wanted to follow Jesus, serve others, and turn outward, but all of those desires passed through the lens of the flesh, because, for the most part, that was still what was in charge my mind.

A lot happened to me this week... so much more than I could ever have time to write down. I spent time running around downtown Kansas City with amazing people, had sleepovers and coffee dates with friends, and went to an incredible worship conference. There were tears, deep conversations about life and faith, and powerful scenes of hundreds of people re-dedicating their lives to Jesus. But that wasn't what moved me the most. I left that week impacted by a small group of people I had gotten to spend some time with, who seemed to live with renewed minds. You could sense the love of Jesus in them so clearly, and the whole time I was just thinking, I want to be like them.

It's amazing to think about the fact that we can think with the mind of Christ; that we can process everything that enters through the lens of faith, and have the ability to think what Jesus thought, and to see people as he sees them.

This is the gift of grace. Grace can't be earned, but it can be accessed. Just because grace is there doesn't mean we've taken a hold of it in our lives; we have to be willing to live inside of it.

Part of the work of grace is that we can live and walk in freedom, not controlled by our emotions. We have the ability to resist the feelings of depression or fear. Jesus set the pattern in Matthew 4, when he resisted temptation with the famous words "It is written". He combated the lies of the Enemy by speaking truth over the situation.

What would happen if we applied that principle to our own spiritual battles?  If, instead of wallowing in guilty, we spoke the truth over our hearts that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Rather than giving way to depression, reminding our souls that there is a reason and a call to rejoice. And as an alternative to loneliness, standing in the knowledge that He is with us always, even to the end of the age.

In Romans 6:14, Paul writes that sin will not have dominion over us. That doesn't mean attacks won't come; it's going to be an uphill battle. But the promise of God is that the Enemy will not that battle; sin will not stand as the victor. Yes, you will still stumble and you won't be able to live perfectly. But you are no longer a slave to sin; you are a child of God, and there is rest in His arms of love.

You have access to a renewed mind in Christ. Are you willing to fight the fight that He is calling you to?

~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~ 

Worship Song: 

"We Will Not be Shaken",
by Brian Johnson (Bethel Music)