Only by the blood of Jesus

I use a face wash called "purity" and for some unknown reason I decided to read the little saying about it on the bottle. It says this:

"You don't have to be perfect to be pure. Purity is intention. Be truthful with your words and actions. Keep your promises. Purity is perspective. Keep an open mind, and reserve judgement. Purity is principle. Treat others the way you want to be treated. No one is perfect, but we all can be pure. Purity is being your best self."

I'm not going to lie this literally made me cringe.

I even laughed to myself.

"Really? Who even would believe this" I thought. 

Then a sudden sadness swept across me. 

All of America, that's who. 

Those views that are so plainly written on my face wash, are the exact views seen today as "right". Just as long as you try your best. Like it says, "Purity is being your best self."

In all reality, what it's saying doesn't seem too bad. These principles that it says to have, aren't bad ones. Unfortunately, it's missing the key ingredient to have these things.


A theme it seems to invest in is you.
What YOU can do to fix it, how YOU should be pure by things YOU do.

 Purity is not something that is attainable by human hands. Nothing you do will ever be good enough to make you pure.  

You can live your whole life thinking you are doing good, being as pure as you can be. 
But let me tell you what your end result will be: 

Failure.

It might seem dramatic to you, and for that i'm sorry but here is the truth:

No matter how good you think you live your life, no matter how much you try and "fix" or "clean" your self, you will always fail.  

You are incapable of being pure apart from the Lord.


"And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ-to the glory and praise of God." Philippians 1:9-11 

How do we achieve pureness?

It is not something we can do on our own, but something that must COME THROUGH JESUS.


That is why He died on the cross. FOR YOU. So that we may be near God, because God can't be near sin. He had to do this because we weren't pure. 


"With the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake OF YOU." I peter 1:19

On our own we will never be good enough. 


It doesn't take much to see that when you take Jesus out of the picture, "being pure" and "having good intentions" "keeping promises" and ect. becomes impossible. 

But the GOOD NEWS is that Jesus DID come down to earth to be the sacrifice we needed. We can be pure through Him.

I am grateful when I think about how my King saved me. He not only saved me by washing me clean with His blood, but He saved me from the expectations of this fleeting world. And for that, I will sing His praise.