…it is written, "Be
holy, for I am holy." —1 Peter 1:16
“Do I believe I need to be
holy? Do I believe that God can come into me and make me holy? If through your
preaching you convince me that I am unholy, I then resent your preaching. 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. […] Never tolerate, because of sympathy for yourself or
for others, any practice that is not in keeping with a holy God. 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.” CHAMBERS
(Genesis 1:26) “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image,
according to Our likeness” That is how
it started. A life of holiness, and then
sin entered in. Jesus came to restore us
back to the our original condition.
First was to set us apart with His Spirit. Through Adam we are dead toward God. Through Jesus (the second Adam) we are restored
and given new life. (Galatians 2:20) “And the life that I now live I live by faith
in the Son of God who loves me and gave himself up for me.” (Romans 6:4) “Therefore we have been
buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from
the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of
life” We are to walk in holiness,
separate from the world. But you know
that already don’t you. But as you
already know, the problem is not in the knowing it is in the doing. Jesus said (Matthew 5:16) “Let your light
shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify
your Father who is in heaven.” The light
is the glory of God produced by the Spirit and your will being in harmony with
one another.
It may be that you have
resolved yourself to a live that falls short of God’s intent. It is a level of apparent holiness that is
sustained by human effort, by works, and not sourced by the Holy Spirit through
faith. You may be living a life
characterized by trying harder. That was
a motto used by Hertz car rentals for years “We try harder” There may have been merit in the business
world, but there is no merit in trying harder in your new life in Christ. Holiness is a result of relationship not
effort. Are you struggling with sin? Are
you trying not to think about the fact that your life is more carnal than
spiritual? That reality bothers you, but
try not to think about it. That is until the Spirit reminds you. You are a child of the King. As they say in the Celebrate Recovery
Ministry, “Denial is not a river in Egypt.”
(1 John 1:6-8) “If we say
that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do
not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the
Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son
cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving
ourselves and the truth is not in us.” ELGIN
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