Point of View

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Andy Pettitte is a pitcher for Major League Baseball's Houston Astros. Excerpt adapted with permission from Strike Zone: Targeting a Life of Integrity and Purity, by Andy Pettitte and Bob Reccord (B&H, 2005).

I hate giving up walks. Nothing infuriates me more than starting an inning by giving some guy a free pass to first base, except maybe walking someone with two outs in the inning. If you walk two or three batters in one inning, you aren't going to last long. You might be able to work out of a self-inflicted jam once in a while, but most of the time you can't. They always come back to haunt you.

Some of you are struggling in the area of purity because you're giving the enemy a free pass right into your life. Images and impure thoughts are doing laps in your brain, and you can't make them stop. You're having trouble controlling yourself sexually, and you keep pushing the envelope. In your heart you know what is right, and you want to do it, but it feels like everything in your mind and body is working against you.

Part of the problem may be you've let things into your life that shouldn't be there. The movies you watch, the music you listen to, your favorite television shows, and the books and magazines you read are all building a fire inside you that you're having trouble keeping under control. Letting these things into our life while trying to live a pure and holy life is like my trying to get out of an inning after walking the first three batters. It can be done, but the odds are against you. Most of the time you will fail.

One of the keys to keeping yourself pure is to not give temptation any free passes. You can do this by building a security system into your life. Most people lock the doors of their house sto keep anyone from breaking in. That's how you should think of your heart and mind.

The world, your flesh, and the devil are thieves trying to get into your life to steal your integrity and destroy you. They want to ruin your testimony, foul up your future, and build a wall of sin and guilt between you and God. If you aren't careful about what you let into your life, you are throwing the door of your heart open and inviting them to come in. You need to do everything you can to protect yourself and make it easier to keep your commitment to live a pure and holy life.

God tells you and me to be holy because He is holy (1 Pet. 1:16). God wants to bless you and fill your life with joy, but you can't expect Him to do that if you ignore what He says.

I know keeping your commitment to purity isn't easy. But don't let that keep you from trying. No goal worth reaching will ever be handed to you. Everything worth doing takes a great deal of work. Purity is no different.