Contaminated And Cleansed

Contaminated And Cleansed

You must distinguish between what is sacred and what is common, between what is ceremonially unclean and what is clean. Leviticus 10:10

Today’s verse was written for the priestly sons of Aaron as they made offerings in the temple, but the same wisdom has other applications as well.

Doctors make decisions every day—sometimes hourly—about what is sterile and what is contaminated. And we must take the necessary precautions to protect our patients and ourselves.

Back in the 1980s, when I began my career in medicine, a new disease sprang up that confounded the medical community. At first, we thought it was an uncommon type of pneumonia (Pneumocystis carinii), but when we saw reports of Kaposi’s sarcoma, a rare cancer, in the same group of people, it seemed strange that a rare infection and a rare cancer would occur closely within the same population. Something was disrupting their immune system, and it seemed to be highly contagious.

It was soon identified as a brand-new infection or a previously unknown virus. And it was spreading quickly. I first saw it in an IV drug abuser who had lived in a large city. He was the first patient we diagnosed with HIV.

The unknown risk factors gave me pause. We knew it was a blood-borne illness, but how much contact with contaminated blood would put someone at risk? I was working as a resident at the time and was regularly placing IVs in patients for dialysis. Would I contract this seemingly untreatable disease?

The same concerns apply to us spiritually. We may think that a “little bit of sin” can’t hurt us, but how much does it take before we’re contaminated? In a hospital, sometimes one microscopic drop is enough. When it comes to our sins, once we’ve been exposed, how do we become clean?

An AIDS conference in San Francisco reassured me that most health-care providers would be safe, as long as we were careful to distinguish between things that were sterile or contaminated. Universal precautions were put in place to help us know the difference.

The same is true spiritually. If we know the difference between what is good for us and what is not, we can avoid being contaminated by sin. But when we succumb, we have the assurance that Jesus died so we could be cleansed and have eternal life.

TODAY’S RX

Use precautions to avoid spiritual contamination. But if you’re exposed, turn to Jesus for cleansing and renewal.

Father, help me to choose what is sacred over what is common. This world is temporary, but you are holy and eternal, and I desire to please you with my life.