OBEY GOD; BE HOLY
I Peter 1:14-16 Obey God because you are his children. Don't slip
back into your old ways of doing evil; you didn't know any better then. But now
you must be holy in everything you do, just as God---who chose you to be his
children---is holy. For he himself has said, "You must be holy, because I
am holy." NLT
For the most part,
the church has either forgotten or ignored these verses. We like our faith to
not be messy. We don't want to get down to the nitty-gritty task of cleaning up
our messes. We want the benefits of faith, but not the demands of faith. We
excuse ourselves when we sin because we are in grace and not the law. We admit
our guilt, but don't let it bother us too much. We change just enough to get
by, with little interest in pursuing the deeper walk of faith known as
holiness.
Yet, God commands it.
He doesn't give us an option in this. He is our Father and He demands our
obedience. We can't get around this truth. As His children, we are not allowed
to continue in our sinful ways. We are commanded to be holy, just as He is
holy. This means that we purposely strive to not sin. It means we seek after
the things of God as a way of life. It means we identify that which is sinful
in us and deal with it before God. It means we identify what is sinful to us
and strive to avoid them.
Being holy takes work.
It does not come naturally to us. It is the fruit of maturing faith. It is the
goal of faith, but it has no end. Holiness is achievable only in degrees. We
can always become more holy. God is holy and therefore to be holy is to be more
like God. We cannot become like God to the degree He is holy, but we must
certainly continuously become more holy.
How are you doing?
Does holiness characterize your life? Are you at peace with how much like God
you are becoming? Or, are you a mess that needs to be cleaned up?
If you are holy, you
will desire and strive to resist sinning. You will develop the discipline of
saying no to sin when it rears its ugly head in your life.
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