The Path of the Righteous: Daily Purification
The Path of the Righteous: Daily Purification
Zac Poonen | 16th February 2025
Jesus taught us to pray every day, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive others” (Matthew 6:12). Do you know that we need to pray for forgiveness every day? Even if we do not repeat Jesus' prayer each day, we must at least recognize that we need to pray for forgiveness daily. I pray every day, “Lord, forgive me of my sins.” How do we know forgiveness is something we need daily? Because the previous line in the prayer is, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). Therefore, it is a daily thing. Lord, I need my daily bread today, and my follow-up request is that You forgive me of my sins today as well.
You might ask, “How can you claim to have victory over sin, but also say that I sin every day?” There is a difference between overcoming conscious sin and unconsciously sinning in areas that we do not even know about. We are really only aware of about ten percent of our lives. Just like we can only see the tip of the iceberg, we can only see the top part of sin in our life. There are a whole lot of areas in our life where we are unconscious of sin and of un-Christlikeness. We need to pray that God will forgive us even in those areas.
That is the meaning of asking for forgiveness every day. We can live in total victory over conscious sin as the Apostle Paul did. In 1 Corinthians 4:4, Paul says, “I am conscious of nothing against myself.” In other words, Paul is saying, “I am living in victory over all known sin. I might not be aware of any sin in my life, but that does not mean I am acquitted or completely free from guilt. The one who examines me is the Lord Himself, to Whom I am answerable. He sees a lot of areas in my life that I do not even see myself. That is why I cannot carelessly say that I am acquitted. I have to ask God to forgive me. When He gives me light on areas I had not previously been conscious of, then I can seek to overcome in these areas.” This is sanctification.
“We must have the same attitude that Jesus had towards material things, men, women, Pharisees, religious hypocrites, and enemies.”
The Lord gives us a simple command, “Follow me.” The Lord then shows us the pathway to a wonderful life of progressive sanctification. Proverbs 4:18 says, “The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn that shines brighter and brighter until the full day.” If we are born again, we are declared righteous because the righteousness of Christ has been imputed to us. The moment of conversion is like the sun rising over the horizon at dawn, chasing away the darkness. The sun becomes brighter while it slowly rises into the heavens until it comes to the perfect noonday position when it is brightest. Similarly, if we are righteous, we should progress in practical righteousness to a greater degree day by day. The sun should not remain on the horizon all the days of our lives. It must increase in brightness. The path of the righteous is like the shining light of the dawn that gets brighter and brighter until the day Christ comes back. Then we will be like Him.
We will be completely like Him only when He comes, but we can walk like Him today. 1 John 3:2 says, “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.” Notice the distinction made in 1 John 3:2. We are already children of God, but what we are going to be is not yet manifested. What are we going to be like? We are going to be like Jesus completely. Our total personality including all our thoughts, words, deeds, attitudes, motives, every area of our inner life, and our unconscious life will be like Jesus.
And when will this happen? When He comes again, and we see Him as He is. But until that day, what should we do? 1 John 3:3 says that if you have this hope that one day you will be completely like Jesus, you will keep on purifying yourself every day until you reach His standard of purity. This is similar to what is written a little earlier in 1 John 2:6, which says that if I say I am a Christian, I must live like Christ lived and walk as He walked. Then one day, I will be like Him.
There is a difference between 1 John 2:6 and 1 John 3:2. The message of 1 John 2:6 means that we need to walk by the same principles by which Jesus lived His earthly life and follow Him. We must have the same attitude that Jesus had towards material things, men, women, Pharisees, religious hypocrites, and enemies. For example, Jesus prayed for those enemies who crucified Him, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do” (Luke 23:34).
The Holy Spirit will enable us to walk like Jesus, but it will only be in our conscious lives, which is only ten percent of our full lives. The remaining ninety percent is hidden. God will reveal more of that hidden area to us so that we may overcome in those areas and increasingly purify ourselves. God cleanses us from sin (1 John 1:7), but we must also seek to purify ourselves by getting rid of sin through the power of the Holy Spirit (1 John 3:3).