August 22

Besides receiving correction graciously from other people, the Lord does desire that we be tuned in to Him so His Holy Spirit can speak to us directly about those attitudes within us that require adjustment. I Corinthians 5:7 states that we are to, “Purge the old leaven…” from our lives. The scripture uses ‘leaven’ as an analogy for sin. We must purge, rid ourselves, of sin.

Jesus is very emphatic about the necessity that each individual take the initiative where his inner cleansing is concerned. In Matthew 5:29, 30, He tells us that if our eye is offensive we should pluck it out and if our hand is offensive, we should cut it off.

He did not intend these admonitions to be executed literally, but He was emphasizing the great importance that each of us deal with the sin that besets us. We know that we cannot indulge a sinful proclivity and still hope for eternity in His Kingdom. Although the work of salvation has been fully accomplished by Jesus’ shedding of His blood to wash us free from sin, we know that we cannot continue in sin.

It behooves each of us to allow Him to first do His cleansing work that delivers us from bondage to sin, and then to allow Him to use others to speak to us, to allow the Word to minister to us and to allow His Holy Spirit to speak to our spirit regarding the continual purging of sin from our lives. If we don’t submit to the purging of the leaven, it will greatly increase our acceptance of sin.