Making What is Pure Seem Profane

The enemy’s intention is always to make that which is holy, profane. When we lived in the Garden, we had transparent intimacy with the Father. We weren’t aware of our nakedness, and our bodies certainly weren’t filthy things to cover up. Our intimacy was beautiful and unbroken. We lived abandoned to God, selflessly, as was intended. But in stepped the serpent. This covetable relationship that man had with his God would be assaulted with attempts to destroy it. The devil felt he must break our transparent union once and for all. Through our listening to the serpent and then our subsequent fall, we made what was beautiful, dirty. We would no longer enjoy our oblivious nakedness and shameless transparency. We each would be very aware of ourselves to the exclusion of God.

Pure to Profane

Another example of this slight of hand to make what is pure seem profane is the mystics. Saints like Brother Lawrence, Madam Guyon, and Teresa of Ávila (and many, many more) were each mystics to varying degrees. Their writings inspire us to this day to pursue a deeper union with God. In the 1828 Noah Webster Dictionary, the word Mysticism is defined as: “Those who profess a pure, sublime and perfect devotion, wholly disinterested, and maintained that they hold immediate intercourse with the divine Spirit.” Wow! Sounds similar to the deep union Adam and Eve experienced in the Garden. But the use of this word has been twisted to mean New Age, creepy, and out there. Isn’t this just too convenient, that a word describing a deeper intimacy with God would be turned into a freak show? The enemy does anything to quell our passion, desire, and pursuit of a deeper relationship with our Father God.

Oh, the devil is so crafty. That which starts out as divinely inspired and led by the Spirit is perverted to appear as an unholy, weird flight of fancy. Again, how convenient this is.

Hijacked: Pure to Profane

Meditation – the stilling of our hearts, minds and bodies to focus on and listen to our Beloved – is still another in a long line of something pure made profane. True meditation is to be still and hear the still, small voice of our God. Like the Psalm, to meditate is to be still and know that He is God. But many of us fear meditation because it has been associated with being New Age, falling into false worship, and something done by kooks. Isn’t this interesting, another wrench in our open pursuit of God?!

What we have been relegated to is pew-perfect, white-bread, religious activity. Nothing too exposed, nothing too vulnerable and nothing truly real. It is pitiable and grievous.

Closed off from Each Other

The repercussion of Satan’s twisting is that we’re closed off to one another. People are suspicious of our love, accuse our worship is being folly, and dissect our doctrine to within an inch of its life. Now I am not saying throw out our discernment or stop testing the spirits. But how about letting the One who discerns, be my discernment!

I am a sheep so I can wander off and nibble on some gross weeds, but my Shepherd God feeds me with His own hands. He is able to steer me clear of noxious weeds when I stay under His care. The devil will always attempt to bastardize and set up counterfeits of that which is pure. I certainly don’t want to cooperate with him. He twists what is actually pure by making it appear profane, all the while scaring the sheep. How effective it is to make what is pure seem profane. Remember, this is the enemy who defines our true passion as demoniacal and also scorns our Spirit-filled pursuits of God as being fanaticism.

Man and Satan will always attempt to hijack the purity of our devotion. All I know is the Spirit is able to lead me into deeper union and relationship with Jesus. My purpose is to follow Him where He leads.