Purity
Purity is something I think that very, very few people understand what it is, and know what it is.
The standard that Jesus set for purity, how He set it.
What He said, in Matthew for example.
It is a high standard, but it is not an impossible standard.
Because that's how He also took it.
To be pure is far more than just being pure in outward things.
Most of purity has to do with how you're taking it in your thought life.
If your eyes look at a woman to lust for her, you've committed adultery. This is something nobody can see.
It's with your thoughts and with your eyes.
But that's how serious He took it and that's the way He also wants His followers, His disciples, to take it.
When you live for your lusts, that means what we naturally as young people want.
It leaves you in such an emptiness, and when you look back,
you can say that your thought life has been with many different things, and many different people.
And that's not pure.
Pure means clean.
That your heart is clean. And that your heart is for God and only for God.
How can I keep myself pure?
Where are your thoughts?
You cannot be pure in your thoughts if you use your time
to watch things, or to see things or to listen to things,
or to be with people where there's no purity.
So the first step there is to be careful how you use your time,
for example with the Internet, and with what you watch and what you listen to.
Is it pure? Does it help me? Does it follow the example Jesus set?
But I am tempted anyway - ?
One thought in itself, for example when one impure thought comes in,
that doesn't mean that you have sinned.
That comes as a temptation, the first thought. But the question is, what do I do with that thought?
If that impure thought leads to another impure thought, and you let those thoughts continue, then that's impurity.
But it is completely normal that as a youth you're tempted.
You're tempted to youthful lusts, and there are many thoughts there that come, that are first...
But to be conscious, to be conscious when that thought comes, and it's not pure,
then, what should I do with it? Then I stop thinking those thoughts.
I remember as a teenager, you feel that you are tempted non-stop.
There's thought after thought, after thought, after thought.
But when you're faithful thought after thought, that's purity!
There it's really important to know that I have decided with my whole heart and and my whole mind to serve God.
Then the temptations come, but then to not listen to Satan who would have me think that I have sinned and it's not possible for me.
What's the result of keeping myself pure?
It says: We who believe enter into rest.
And you can say, what is rest? Rest is rest,
Rest means that things that tempted you before – you feel like it was constantly those thoughts, you were tempted non-stop,
you come to rest from that.
I've experienced that for myself. That there's a real joy in choosing to live a pure life.
And for myself I can say, to choose purity, is, I think, the greatest thing you can do for yourself.
It's not at all that it's hard and it's bondage. You save yourself from so much.
You make it so much easier for yourself, for the future.