The Price of Purity

Purity comes at a high price. There was no getting away from that.

Elisabeth Elliot, Passion and Purity (Revell, 2002), p. 66.

The price of purity is self-denial. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. If you would be pure, you must put down the desires of the flesh. We all have those desires. God put them in us. To desire someone of the opposite sex is not wrong; it’s natural. However, to forfeit the opportunity for the gratification of those desires is not natural. That is the price of purity.

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Elisabeth Elliot’s writing has greatly influenced my life, even as a grown married woman. I truly wish someone had introduced me to her works when I was a teenager, but I am learning that it is never too late to incorporate the principles she teaches: namely, that passion is not sinful and purity is not prudish. Nor are they mutually exclusive. You can have both.