The Cost of Obedience

Lay hands quickly on no one, nor share in the sins of others.  Keep yourself pure.  1 Timothy 5:22

Pure – It is the twilight of the gods of the West.  All around us we see the decline of the gods we serve – power, money, sex.  They are losing their grip.  How do we know this to be true?  Well, you have to understand a bit about addiction to realize what is really happening.  As the power of these gods declines, the numbing anesthetic they provide for the truth about our inner decay also declines. Just like all addictions, this deteriorating potency means that the amount of poison necessary to maintain the same level of unreality grows bigger and bigger.  In other words, as tolerance increases so must the frequency and intensity of the addictive behavior.  Thus, the world’s appetite for power, money and sex is escalating rapidly.  We think it’s a sign of immorality.  It is really a sign of the lack of immortality.   The death of the West looms larger and larger – and its addicts demand more and more.

All of this brings us to Paul’s letter to Timothy.  First century Rome was in the midst of a slide toward extinction.  All the signs that we see today were just as evident then.  Paul cautions Timothy to be circumspect in his associations with others.  Then he lays down the gauntlet.  “Keep yourself pure.”  Yes, it’s a fine goal, but how in the world (for that is precisely where one must exercise this purity) can this be done when all the world is going to hell in a hand basket?

This is the second sanctification word.  Not katharos, but hagnos – that inner quality that shuns evil and is repulsed by impurity.  Hagnos is virginal purity, unsullied by any of the world’s seductive offerings.  It is the state of innocence that we lost when we invited sin into this world.  The primal hope of Mankind is a desperate cry to return to that lost world.  Oh, if our lives could only recapture the sweet harmony of lost childhood.  We all recognize what we are missing, but there is no way back – unless God regenerates us!

Did you realize that re-birth is God’s innocence plan?  He offers us a return ticket.  We are invited to join Him in the Garden for a walk in the cool of the evening.  There are two agents in this action.  The first is God.  Without rebirth, my innocence is gone forever.  But the second agent is me.  As much as I might want that evening stroll, unless I am willing to turn away from the defiled world I currently inhabit – in thought, emotion, attitude and deed – even God’s invitation to innocence will be unproductive.  I can get back to the Garden, but the ticket isn’t free.  It cost Jesus His life.  It will cost me the same.  Crucifixion of the self is the only way back.  Most of us would rather stay drunk.