“You can’t control your thoughts, but you can control your actions.” Have you ever heard someone say this before or something similar? I think many people believe that their thoughts have a will of their own and can’t be controlled, and as long as what’s in their head doesn’t come out in the open, then it’s not hurting anyone else. While this line of thinking may be true in some sense— thoughts can be hard to control, and no human can actually read your mind— this isn’t the attitude taken by our Lord concerning our thoughts. 

In my twenties, my best friend gave me a purity ring. She even had our church pastor pray over the ring and give his blessing. That little ring represented so much to me, a declaration of my desire to live a pure and righteous life before God. And you know what, sister, I’m married now, but I still have the ring today! So here’s the thing: the ring itself isn’t powerful; it merely symbolizes my pursuit of purity without verbalizing it. 

When you hear the word purity do you cringe a little? Do you immediately think of sexual purity? I know I do but I want to take you down a different path of ideas of what purity in the Bible means. I want to look at 3 ways that purity is essential to our walk with the Lord?