Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“He who is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes, and shave off all his hair, and bathe himself in water; and he shall be clean. After that he shall come into the camp, but shall dwell outside his tent seven days. It shall be on the seventh day, that he shall shave all his hair off his head and his beard and his eyebrows. He shall shave off all his hair. He shall wash his clothes, and he shall bathe his body in water. Then he shall be clean.”
(Leviticus 14:8-9)

“Examine your own selves, whether you are in the faith. Test your own selves. Or don’t you know about your own selves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified. But I hope that you will know that we aren’t disqualified.“
(2 Corinthians 13:5-6)

Even without the Temple and the priests who functioned within it, ritual washing has a place in modern Judaism. It is a potent symbol of resurrection. Of going down in one state and being reborn coming up into another state. To become a new creature, a new creation that is clean, whole, and pure in the sight of God. It was a major sign and part of physical healing (especially those with a spiritual root). It was of course a major part of spiritual healing. It was part and parcel of getting right with God.

Paul doesn’t divorce the believer in Jesus from this process. Quite the contrary. We are instructed in many different ways throughout the New Covenant to lean into the idea of examining our hearts, our actions, our words, and our thinking. Jesus points out to us that our MOTIVATION matters just as much as what we do – perhaps even more. We are never to cease from investigating whether we need to get right with God. Whether we need to alter what we do in order to align ourselves with His commands, His moral character, and His point of view. As we died in Christ, we need to ensure that we always remember to live IN HIM and not in our selfish or misguided thinking.

Summary

It is not us who lives in these bodies of ours, but Jesus who lives inside us (Galatians 2:20). We died to the world in order to live in Jesus (Romans 6:4). We need to examine our thinking consistently. Renew our minds to God’s point of view consistently. To meditate on the Word and to keep His words before our eyes consistently. It is by resting in Jesus’ completed works that we have true life. It is by staying connected to Him that we have abundant life. We need to constantly be aware of whether Holy Spirit is giving us a course correction and lean into what we hear from Him.