Have You Washed Your Hands Today?

I was reading from the book of Haggai this morning. Haggai spoke these words to a defiled people.

Hag 2:12-13 NIV
"If a person carries consecrated meat in the fold of his garment, and that fold touches some bread or stew, some wine, oil or other food, does it become consecrated?'" The priests answered, "No." Then Haggai said, "If a person defiled by contact with a dead body touches one of these things, does it become defiled?" "Yes," the priests replied, "it becomes defiled."

The Amplified Version says it this way: "Unholiness is infectious." When I come home from a trip, Jeanne washes all my clothes; clean and unclean that was in my luggage. Her reasoning is this. Clean clothes does not make dirty clothes clean. Dirty clothes rubs off on the clean unworn clothes. The clean clothes even takes on the smell of unclean clothes.

Hag 2:14-15 TLB
Haggai then made his meaning clear. 'You people,' he said (speaking for the Lord), "'were contaminating your sacrifices by living with selfish attitudes and evil hearts-and not only your sacrifices, but everything else that you did as a "service" to me. And so everything you did went wrong.

The world rubs off on us. We are in this world but not suppose to be of it. Are you a friend of this world? In the book of James we read that anyone who is a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. To "become" is a process. How can we avoid that? James gave us an answer. "Submit yourselves, then, to God . . . Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts . . . (Jas 4:7-8 NIV). We need to purify our hearts daily.