It’s a New Year,how about a New You?

2 Corinthians 7:1

            “let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” There are 3 things here we are told to do to be conformed to the image as His holy children. The first is obvious but so undetected because we read it the wrong way. We are told to “cleanse ourselves”. I’ve heard so many times that we can’t do that God has to. To me that is nothing but an excuse to keep sinning. Most people think of this as a bath, not a true inner cleansing. There are things we can do to “cleanse ourselves”, and the first is our “filthiness of the flesh” which is our deliberate sin that we are trapped in with no regard for our bodies. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and some of us need to cleanse the temple. We are being told to get to the root of the sin, dig it out and get rid of it, not just confess it. The second thing most Christian’s overlook is the cleansing ourselves of filthiness of the spirit. This would be better read as our sinful attitudes. A good picture of this was the attitude of the brother in the parable of the Prodigal son. When the fleshly brother repented and returned to the father, the bother wouldn’t even acknowledge him, nor did he want to talk to the father, that’s a sinful attitude. Lastly, we are told to perfect holiness in the fear of God. Our being holy children isn’t just about coming to Christ, it’s about coming clean of sin, changing our attitude toward those over us, and our reverence for God. Being doers isn’t just for serving God it’s for obedience to the Word of God. It’s time to start digging up the roots of sinful ways, and attitudes, and then walk in Christ to the will of the Father.