Purification comes through Obedience
Purification comes through Obedience
Peter said in 1 Peter 1:22, "Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently"
This verse that speaks of the purification of our souls comes in the context of our faith being purified (1 Pet 1:6-7), being obedient children not fashioning ourselves according to our former lusts (1 Peter 1:14) and being holy (1 Peter 1:15-17)
Purification means to make clean and sanctify. How then does this sanctification take place? By obeying the truth. Jesus prayed to the Father in John 17:17 to sanctify us through truth because the Father's word is truth.
So, the Father's word is truth and were sanctified by that same truth. One thing is guaranteed, if we're not obeying the truth we're not being sanctified.
What then is the prerequisite to obeying the truth? Spending time in God's word so that we can be sanctified by it. I cant be sanctified and set apart unto the Lord if I don't have a relationship with the word of God.
We then must have a systematic method of spending time in God's word. Whether it's in the morning, afternoon or evening. We must spend time in the word if we want to be set apart from the world unto God.
Being in the word will help our faith to grow and be purified. Being in the word will help us not be fashioned according to our former lusts and it also helps us to be holy. Finally, the word aids in the purification of our soul.
If I'm not spending time in God's word all of this won't happen. If we don't already have a plan in place to study God's word then we should come up with a plan to have one. Otherwise, our souls won't be purified. The end result of our souls being purified in our verse at hand is that we love the brethren.
Let's love the word so we can be purified and love the brethren.