Holiness - It Starts With The Heart

My Utmost For His Highest

 

…it is written, "Be holy, for I am holy." —1 Peter 1:16

“We must continually remind ourselves of the purpose of life. We are not destined to happiness, nor to health, but to holiness[…] At all costs, a person must have the right relationship with God. Do I believe I need to be holy? Do I believe that God can come into me and make me holy? [...]  The preaching of the gospel awakens an intense resentment because it is designed to reveal my unholiness, but it also awakens an intense yearning and desire within me. God has only one intended destiny for mankind— holiness. His only goal is to produce saints. God is not some eternal blessing-machine for people to use, and He did not come to save us out of pity— He came to save us because He created us to be holy. Atonement through the Cross of Christ means that God can put me back into perfect oneness with Himself through the death of Jesus Christ, without a trace of anything coming between us any longer.[…] Holiness means absolute purity of your walk before God, the words coming from your mouth, and every thought in your mind— placing every detail of your life under the scrutiny of God Himself. Holiness is not simply what God gives me, but what God has given me that is being exhibited in my life.” CHAMBERS

What comes to your mind when you think of holiness?  Is that word reserved for other more spiritual people than yourself?  Holiness means to be set apart.  As a Christian, you are spiritually set apart from the natural, fallen world when you are born again.  2 Corinthians 5:17 says you are a “new creation, the old has passed and the new has come”.  But holiness also means that we must also be set apart physically and relationally from the world. We are in the world but not of it (John 17:16).  There is an old rhyme, “I don’t smoke and I don’t chew, and I don’t go out with girls who do.”  You don’t make yourself holy from the outside by stopping behaviors that are offensive to God.  You become holy from the inside out.  Holiness starts with the heart.  You must focus on your devotions .. what are you devoted to?  As you shift your devotion to the Lord, the world and what it offers will become dimmer in the light of your deepening relationship with the Lord.  Think about it.  ELGIN

“Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face.  And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.”

Bondye Beni Ou (God Bless You)