Bringing the Profane into the Pure

     In Exodus 3, God appears to Moses in a burning bush that is not consumed. When Moses approaches, Jehovah tells him to, ". . . take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." Why did God command Moses to be barefoot? Could it be a symbol of leaving the profane (the regular dirt of the sinful world) which was on his sandals behind, so that he did not bring it into the presence of Jehovah?

     We need to be reminded today to take off our sandals on occasion. We have gotten very good at bringing the profane into the pure. We would be horrified if someone brought a muddy dirty hog into our Sunday service and drove it down front and kept it there, squealing and stinking and disrupting the worship, wouldn't we?

      We know that this would be wrong. This would be mixing the profane with the pure. Yet, this is what happens when we bring musical instruments not commanded by God into our worship. When we show "video clips from today's hottest movies and T.V. shows" in the lesson as a local denomination advertised recently. When we mix eating and drinking with our worship. When we spend time thinking more about what's on T.V. or for lunch after services than we do about the message being presented.

     Here's the bottom line. We are no different than that pig I mentioned when we are not pure ourselves, but come to worship our Almighty Father, Lord and Master anyway. We are mixing the profane and the pure. When we have not kept ourselves "unspotted from the world," we are bringing the profane into the pure. When no one can tell the difference between a "Christian" and the rest of the world, we have mixed the pure and the profane. We have become guilty of dragging the profane into the pure on so many levels. It. Is. Shameful.

    Moses needed a burning bush to wake him up and get him on the right road. His objections were many. What will it take for us to purify ourselves? What objections do we need to overcome? What changes do we need to make in ourselves, our lives, our conduct, our speech, our behavior, our attitudes, our entertainment, our friends, our relationships, etc., so that we may purify ourselves? So that when we do approach the Pure God of Heaven and Earth, we are in essence barefoot, no longer bringing the profane into the pure?

May God Bless you today as you examine yourself, and separate the profane from the pure.  -- Robert