Title: Purifying Water (Numbers 19:1~22)
Contents One of God's great wishes for the people of Israel was "a life of purity."
This is equally required of all Christians today who have become God's people through Jesus Christ.
"To turn away from sin and move on to a holy life"...This is the life God requires of us.
However, today, when many Christians think of “a holy life,” they only think of sitting quietly in prayer, meditating on the Word, or worshiping God. Of course, we can move on to a holy life through prayer, the Word, and worship. However, not only through the Old Testament but also throughout the New Testament, we find that the true holiness that God desires is required in most of our lives.
Today's text also speaks of those who touched the body of a dead person or touched the grave as those who became unclean, and how those who became unclean are cleansed.
These are just things that happen in our daily life that have nothing to do with the act of worship.
Today we do not become unclean by touching a dead body or touching a grave. Those who believe that it is unclean must kill a heifer without blemish, go before the tent of meeting, sprinkle the blood seven times, and burn the calf to make ashes, mix the ashes with "purifying water" and dip it in hyssop, as in today's text. You must spray it on your body. Because without it you can never be clean.
Through these Old Testament words, we must meditate on what makes us unclean today and how to purify when we become unclean and discover the principle.
There are so many things around us today that make us unclean, if not dead bodies or graves. All the cultures of the world polluted with sin make us unclean. Much of what we see, hear, touch, and experience is linked to sin. Also, many of the people we meet are people who reject God and indulge in worldly pleasures. Living with chastity among such people is not easy. However, God does not allow us to compromise or live in moderation just because we are in this environment. God requires us to say a firm “NO” every day, and He wants us to turn away from them resolutely.
How can we purify ourselves? What drives us toward a holy life?
It is not "the ashes of a heifer" or "cleansing water" that cleanses us today. Such ordinances will never make us holy.
Hebrews 9:13-14 says, "If the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling upon the unclean one purifies and sanctifies the flesh, how much more is Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God. How can not the blood of God cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?"
It is only the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses us from uncleanness and leads us from sin to a holy life.
May this day be a day away from what makes us unclean.
If I don't move away from that, I'll turn myself away from God instead.
If by any chance I recognize that I have become unclean from such things, I hope that I can perform my own ritual to purify it without hiding or hiding it. There is no need to slaughter a heifer and sprinkle it with blood or collect ashes and mix it with "cleansing water". All you need to do is go to the cross of Jesus Christ with your sin problem, pray, repent and turn around.
I hope that you and I will be living the holy and pure life that God desires today.