Soul Bathing

”Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.” John 15:3
“That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word.” Ephesians 5:26
“Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to thy word.” Psalm 119:9

After spending a few hours shopping or traveling, or all day at work, you may have inescapably become contaminated with the soil and grime of the city. The effects are clearly visible on your face and hands as you look in a mirror. So, you might cleanse yourself with soap and water.

In the same way, when mixing with the world, or even among some Christians who are not grounded in the Word, the soul comes home to relax only to see itself in the mirror of God’s Word, begrimed by the filth of the world’s opinions and materialism. You need a soul cleansing that comes from the washing from the cleansing Word. Your standards of conduct and thinking are once again re-adjusted to God’s; minds smudged with conversation, light and worldly, even suggestive of moral filth, eyes that have of necessity seen much that is likely to contaminate the soul—all need washing under God’s Word.

An early church father Chrysostom warned: “As people’s bodies, when deprived of the benefit of the bath, become all full of dirt and filth, so also the soul, deprived of spiritual instruction, becomes mottled over with many brand of sin. And our exercises here form a spiritual bath which, subjected to the warming of the Spirit, removes every uncleanness. Or rather, it is not merely the uncleanness itself, but even the color of it, which the fire of the Spirit removes. For, saith He, though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow.”

Unless you have the privilege of not working with others, especially the unsaved, you will have to deal with this issue. Take time each day when you have left outside work, to seek the cleansing power of the Word of God to renew your spirit. You will stay clean and be ready to meet the next day.