“YOU SHALL BE CLEAN”
“Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean;
I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols”
(Ezekiel 36:25).
ACCORDING TO A SURVEY in which three thousand Christians participated, 73 percent of them affirmed Christ was a created being; 46 percent affirmed the Holy Spirit is a force and not a personal being, and 66 percent said human beings are good by nature.’ You might be appalled by the data, but there are much harsher realities.
For example, Jewish religious leaders of Jesus’s time worried excessively about not transgressing the holiness of the Sabbath as a day of rest; however, they did not consider it a sin to use false witnesses to achieve Christ’s execution. They respected the Sabbath, but broke the sixth and ninth commandments. Lying and murdering were their favorite heresies. We do not find the disciples openly breaking any of the precepts included in the Ten Commandments; instead, the Gospels don’t hide the favorite heresy of the Twelve: power. Their worry was: “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” (Matthew 18:1). They strictly adhered to keeping the letter of the law, whereas they cherished the heresy of being above everyone else. They were orthodox in regards to doctrine, but heretics in their life experience.
What is our favorite heresy? What is our private interpretation of a sin that the Bible clearly points out, and that we commit because we don’t consider it wrong given our circumstances? In my favorite book by Ellen G. White, Steps to Christ, she broached the subject in this way: ”However trifling this or that wrong act may seem in the eyes of men, no sin is small in the sight of God. Man’s judgment is partial, imperfect; but God estimates all things as they really are. The drunkard is despised and is told that his sin will exclude him from heaven; while pride, selfishness, and covetousness too often go unrebuked. “**
There’s only one way to eradicate our favorite sin and heresy from our lives, and that is to allow God to keep this promise in us: “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols” (Ezekiel 36:25). Only the Lord’s purifying water can eradicate from us the sins we cherish.
* https://Iifewayresearch.com/2018/10/17/americans-theology-contains-mix-of-heresy-hearsay- and-historic-christian-beliefs/
**Ellen G. White, Steps to Christ (Mountain View, California: Pacific Press, 1892), p. 3O.
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Taken from: Devotional Readings for Adults 2023
“I AM WITH YOU”
From: J. VLADIMIR POLANCO
Collaborators: Lorina Maya & Avineyda Hernandez