Devotional #14 (part 10 of 1 Timothy 4:12 study)

Good morning, ladies! I hope all of you had a wonderful weekend and blessed Lord's Day! We are continuing on with our devotional study of 1 Timothy 4:12, which says, "Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity." We are currently on part 3 of the purity aspect of this verse. If you have not had the opportunity to read the prior devotionals in this series, please do so before continuing on with this one, by clicking here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the previous devotionals on this subject, we have clearly seen just how very crucially important our purity and the preservation of it really is! But, how do we ensure that our whole purity is preserved? Here are some helpful tips for you to remember and put into practice:

• Insure that every single book you read is holy and above reproach.

Emotional purity is probably the aspect of purity that we females battle with the most. Whatever you do, do not read filthy romance novels. They waste your time, do not glorify God, and get us females into dreaming about a future spouse, having fantasies, or just dwelling on romance way too much. These books do not help us to preserve our purity whatsoever, but rather they steal away our emotional purity, and bit by bit, that purity is torn away and lost. Our thoughts ought to always be glorifying to God, and ought to be to the good of our future husband (She does him good and not evil all the days of her life. ~ Prov. 31:12). But if we are reading these such novels, these are not doing our future husbands any good, but are rather depriving them of receiving the blessed and treasured gift of our complete and whole purity-of body, mind and heart. This is a sin, dear ladies, and should therefore be stopped immediately and repented of. If you are in the habit of reading these such books, throw them away immediately, ask the Lord for His forgiveness for reading such filthy books, and become accountable to your parents!

• Insure that every movie and tv show that you watch is holy and blameless.

Sadly, so many movies and tv shows today are just plain filthy, full of tons of immoral and impure scenes. Without even meaning to, if you watch these kinds of movies and tv shows, you may be dwelling on or thinking about what the movie contained, and this is immoral and is robbing you of your emotional and mental purity. If you are in the habit of watching tv shows and movies which contain such ungodly content, stop watching these immediately! If you own them, throw them away. If you watch them on tv, block the channel if need be. But either way, stop watching these and become accountable to your parents. Ask the Lord for His forgiveness for allowing such filthy things to enter your eyes and mind, and ask Him for the strength to resist them in the future.

• Insure that all the music you listen to is honoring and glorifying to Christ.

There is SO much music out there today that is simply filthy, ungodly, and vile! If you own any music at all that has impure lyrics that cause you to think about things you shouldn't, immediately throw these CDs or cassettes out and stop listening to this sort of music on the radio as well. Once again, go before the Lord and repent of your sin, ask Him for the strength to resist temptation in the future, and then be accountable at all times to your parents.

• Insure that all websites that you access are pure.

Only go to websites you know to be Christ-honoring and glorifying and block all others. If you have been accessing websites, or any such thing on the computer that is impure or immoral, then immediately go to the Lord for forgiveness and become accountable to your parents in this area.

• Insure that your companions and friends are God-fearing and God-honoring.

I wrote a devotional on this subject not long ago. I can't even begin to stress to you how important this is!! Choose friends who are in love with Christ, and who seek to glorify Him in everything that they do, think and say. Only spend time with those who are good, godly role-models. Do not keep company with anyone who would lead you or influence you to be immoral, impure or to disobey God's clear commands. If you have friends that are bad influences on you, cut off these friendships immediately. We are to always be friendly to such people but we are not to be friends with them, for despite what we may think, the truth is that they will influence us (1 Corinthians 15:33)-we will not be the ones influencing them. Pray diligently for these people, though, that the Lord may change their hearts. But do not keep company with such people, for they will likely rob you of some area of your purity.

• Insure that all of your conduct is chaste and discreet.

Please refer to this devotional, where I speak on us being discreet and chaste, and I use the Webster's 1828 Dictionary devotional definitions, to help you better understand these words. In short, to be discreet means to not be rash, but rather prudent, wise, cautious and wary in conduct, and to "play caution and self-restraint" [Webster's Dictionary]. When you say the word modest, most people just think that that refers to clothing. But I beg to differ! It applies just as much to a person's conduct as it does to someone's clothing! We must have modesty in our conduct, if we hope to be an example to the believers in purity. This is so important! To be modest in conduct is to be discreet, quiet, not obnoxious, etc. To be chaste in conduct is to be pure, virtuous and holy in all of your actions. Sadly, so many girls and young women are into flirting nowadays. I can't tell you what this does to that young lady's beauty! It diminishes it so rapidly-it shows that this girl is immature and impure. I used to attend a youth group where flirting was prevelant. In a church! It was horrible. Flirting is a sin that must be illiminated immediately from our conduct, never to return again. Flirting is impure, unholy, immoral and very dishonoring to God and to our future husbands! If you have found yourself in this habit, repent of it, ask the Lord to forgive you and give you the strength to resist the temptation in the future and be accountable to your parents in this area as well!

• Insure that you are in the Word daily!

Stay in God's Word daily!! The more you fill yourself with it, the more you will have the desire to stay completely pure, and the more strength you will have to resist temptations. Have a quiet time daily!! Meditate on God's Word day and night! Memorize verses, and study God's Word every single day! I can't begin to stress to you enough the importance of this! I will be doing a post on this soon, giving you helpful tips on how to meditate on God's Word, so be sure to come back for that! :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I pray that these tips have been helpful to you! Put them into practice and daily ask the Lord for the strength to resist temptation and to live in a holy, pure manner. He will give you this strength and will help you! Rely on and trust in Him!

On Wednesday, I will have a devotional on one other very very important thing to do in order to guard your purity. This one requires a full length devotional in and of it self, so I did not add it to this list. :) Please return on Wednesday for this devotional! And, I would love to hear from you! I would love to get your feedback on how these devotionals have been an encouragement to you, and how the Lord has used them in your life! So, please e-mail me at: living_for_my_Lords_glory@hotmail.com Looking forward to hearing from you!

Have a blessed day,

Rebekah