Why Do You Seek To Be Holy?


Is it for a better sense of self? A richer, fuller experience in life to live without regret?
Is it for the sake of neighbors and friends? To be upstanding in the community?
Is it for your own personal conscience to be freed from the disparaging nature of sin?

What is your motivation for holiness?
I'm afraid we often have the wrong one, which usually leads us to a self-righteous Pharisaical hypocrisy where in "everything we do is done for men to see."

Paul, on the other hand, calls the believers of Corinth to come out from the idolatry of the unbelievers in 2 Corinthians 6:14 (ESV), saying "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?"

Then he tells us why we should seek holiness, or separateness from the worldly influence of people apart from God...

2 Corinthians 7:1 (ESV) Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.

What promises? 
Back up still and you'll see:
2 Corinthians 6:16 (ESV) For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Notice the tense, "we ARE the temple of the LIVING God." Now we understand there is no life in worthless things. There is not fulness apart from Him. It is only God who is living. Dead idols do nothing but disappoint and leave us hollow.

Second, when we pursue holiness in Christ, it is not to be made right, for we are by faith. It is to walk with God! It is to sense His wonderful presence dwelling among us. For sure, there can be no substitute in life than to know the Lord's presence and to feel the Spirit's fullness. Once you have "tasted and seen that the Lord is good" (1 Peter 2:3) you cannot and will not find anything to compare. Experience with darkness cannot be enticing once the presence of God who lives in unapproachable light is realized.

So we do not seek holiness so we can experience a better sense of self!
NO! We seek holiness so we can experience the very goodness of God!

As Paul says in another book: Ephesians 5:18 (ESV) And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.  No drink can give what only the Spirit imparts. 

No other fount I know...

PRAYER:
Father I long to be with you and in Your presence. I pray for holiness to be the mark of my existence. I thank you for the PROMISE of Your nearness. Cleanse me and wash me clean of any defilement of thought or deed. In Jesus Name. Amen.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

God’s View of You

Sometimes I think we imagine that God is mostly disappointed with us. That He puts up with us and bears with us because He has to (after all He is love), but most of the time our glaring weaknesses weary Him and make His day miserable. Of course, this is the devil’s doing in our minds. The truth of scripture bears out that the world has to get staunch-raving evil before God is totally weary of us. And the stories in the Old Testament remind us with each passing character that God is patient, loving and kind to His very flawed inconsistent servants. Saul is a case study of this. His lineage will not hold the kingdom, that has already been stated from the mishap of offering the sacrifice instead of waiting for Samuel to arrive in 1 Samuel 13. His next great gaff will happen in the chapter to come in 1 Samuel 15 where his own kingship will be taken from him and the anointing placed on one soon to come. Yes, God will regret making Saul king and we’ll talk about that next. But for now...
Read more

The Stain of Slavery

One of the greatest pains in my heart over the history of the church is the fact that many "Bible-believing" Christians used the Bible to promote, continue, and enable slavery in America's past. It may have happened elsewhere, but I'm an American, and I know it happened here. Then, some repeatedly make the claim because of a tiny amount of verses where God informs Israel on how to take slaves, it means the Bible is a pro-slavery document. How absurd. The overarching narrative of the Bible is that God sets the slaves free. The second book testifies to this part of God's character.  Getting to Jeremiah's day, one of the reasons Israel's nation was handed over to exile was because they enslaved each other. This attitude was so engrained into the culture of Israel that they had a hard time giving up slavery even in the face of national catastrophe.  In Jeremiah 34, the king is promised that he will die in Babylon, but he will die in peace. Jeremiah 34:3–5 (ESV...
Read more

Leaders Who Later Fail

Remember Johanan from Jeremiah 41? The man who saved many others from the threats of the murderous coup? He seemed like a noble leader. But time reveals a lot.  Jeremiah 42:5–6 (ESV)  Then they said to Jeremiah, “May the LORD be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act according to all the word with which the LORD your God sends you to us. 6 Whether it is good or bad, we will obey the voice of the LORD our God to whom we are sending you, that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of the LORD our God.” These are the words of the presumptive leaders of Israel in the land while the nation is in exile. The previous chapter saw a hero arise to protect a few remaining survivors. His name was Johanan. On the surface, he seems like a good man, seeking the will of the Lord in his leadership position. Jeremiah returns with directives from the Lord: Jeremiah 42:10 (ESV) If you will remain in this land, then I will build you up and not pull you down; I will plant y...
Read more