Dirty– a word that many of us do not want to be described as. Many of us take the time to make sure our physical bodies are clean; we take showers everyday, brush our teeth, and the list goes on. Although your physical body may be clean, have you ever questioned if your spiritual life needed cleaning? Is your spiritual life dirty?

Imagine going to a smokey bbq place. When you first enter the place you are most likely going to notice the smell. Although the smoke smells bad, you cannot runaway from it because the place is filled with smoke. However, as you stay longer the smell starts to fade away and when you get out, you probably won’t even realize anymore that you smell because you already got used to of the smell. This here is called adaption.

This analogy applies exactly to our spiritual life. We all live and interact in this world that is full of sin and corruption, yet we all forget that just like the smoke in the bbq place, the sin of this world gets on us too. We become dirty just from going out in this world, and when we go home we forget that we are dirty and need to wash ourselves with God’s word and the holy spirit.

Many of us think that we do not need to pray and read the bible everyday. But if you interact with this world, its corruption will go on you and you will have to wash your souls and mind just like how you shower everyday. Do not let Satan plant a lie in your heart telling you that you can go out in this world without needing to cleanse yourself with God’s truth.

Like the smoke in my analogy, this world will get to you. And if we do not hurry to clean ourselves, we will soon adapt to the sins of this world without realizing it. We need God everyday to cleanse us and renew our minds to purity. So how do we prevent from being dirty?

1. Acknowledge the world is dirty and full of sin. 

2. Acknowledge you will always be dirty and never 100% clean when you live in this world. 

If you keep these 2 things in mind everyday, it will prevent you from sining without realizing because you see the need to wash yourself with God’s word everyday. Believing that you do not need to speak and hear from God everyday will make you vulnerable. It will lead you to sin without knowing you are sinning.

I was recently reading about the life of Charles Parham who was used by God greatly, and was one of the founders of the Pentecostal religion. However, near the end of his life he started to drift away from God, and probably without even realizing it. He had a spirit of racism and believed that blacks and whites should be separated even during church services. It wasn’t surprising to read about this because during the 1800s, racism was still prominent. However, it was shocking to see how a great man of God could still fall to such a sin without realizing it. He later was accused for many other acts that lead to his decline as an evangelist.

The story of Parham made me realize how we need to constantly check on ourselves to make sure we are not adapting to what is going around us. It can be so easy to adapt to the environment we are in- it is our natural human tendency. Satan wants us to adapt to sin without us even realizing that it is sin that we accept.  There are 2 types of conditions when we sin: Sinning but not realizing that we are sinning, and sinning and understanding that we are sinning. 

Sinning and knowing you sinned is already bad enough, but sinning and not knowing is even more dangerous. Pray and ask the holy spirit to help you see your own dirtiness that your own eyes cannot see. This world is corrupted and it can easily brainwash you without you even realizing it.

Don’t adapt to the world, but adapt to God’s word.

Romans 12:2 says, “Do not conform to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”God told us not to conform to this world because he knew that it would be easy for man to conform to this world. But as long as we wash ourselves with his truth, it will transform us and make us clean and pure to be the light of the world. Ask God to reveal the things you need to wash away from your life, and he will reveal them to you. So remember, wash yourself physically and spiritually everyday.