I've gotten a lot of love on my posts this week about purity and integrity. But there's a danger here that I want to address.
On the one hand, we've gotta' be talking about living with purity and integrity in our culture.
But on the other hand by stating that purity and integrity pave the way for intimacy and healthy authority in leadership, a good number of folks out there hear voices that condemn: purity has already given way to other things, integrity has been spent on goods that turned out to be fraudulent. Hopeless descends like a dark cloud.
And so we finish out the week bringing weaving together a third thread from the posts this week: post-dating. In Christ, we are offered an opportunity to have post-dated purity and integrity, even after we have already given them away.
Redemption means that it is possible to live with a post-dated purity and integrity. The Scriptures declare that God's grace is new to us every morning. God's grace is new to you this morning. Really.
We live our lives inside a fast-moving, one-way train of time. But God, who stands outside of time, has the power and the grace to work backwards into time. He can take a hold of the mistakes that we have made and work them backwards for our good and his glory. What was once vile and disgusting and arrogant can be turned to grace and beauty and holiness. Really.
If a call to purity and integrity leave you crestfallen and despairing, here is the good news: to those who call on Jesus, your past does not have the last word on you. Under the gracious and powerful umbrella of the lordship of Christ, your mistakes do not have the last word on you. God does.
And this God is not limited by the mistakes of your past. And the quality of your future need not be dictated by those same mistakes either. Redemption is reality.
The glorious freedom of submission to Christ is that we no longer have to live under the tyranny of our own sins. We are freed to live in the power and hope of an empty tomb.
Sin does not have the last word. Hope does. We have been given a glimpse into what is to come and death does not win. Life does. Hope wins.
This redemption means that we have work to do. Chances are, someone who reads this post has an addiction that desperately needs to be addressed. Talk to someone. Get help.
Chances are, some of you are living a lie, maybe multiple lies, maybe multiple levels of lies. Are you sick of it yet? Come clean. Live into the light. This does not have to be who you are.
Purity and integrity matter. But if those seem like a long way off, a long time ago, there's good news. Purity and integrity can be post-dated, re-started, begun again.
That's the redemptive power of God, bending down from heaven in love and passion and grace to work backward into the abyss of time to fish out our darkest secrets, bring them into the light, beautify them, and force them to become a part of our crown and our character.
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