be holy
Posted: December 14th, 2009 | Author: Serena Woods | Filed under: God, life | 7 Comments »‘You shall be holy because I am holy.’ -1 Peter 1:16
As far as I could count, the command for a person to be holy is found six times in the Old Testament (KJV) and twice in the New Testament (KJV).
Purity and sanctification are goals because we believe it’s God’s will for His followers. As a group of people who want to offer our best and keep ourselves from immorality, we use precaution. We’re told to safeguard our lives in order to keep us in ‘right relationship’ with God.
The foundation of the Christian is belief in Jesus and the label ‘Christian’ carries the weight of responsibility. A responsibility to be pure. To live a sanctified and holy life. Anything that falls short is a piercing alarm. It’s either a cause for concern or a ground for excommunication. Either way, your connection to the body of Christ is questioned.
The problem is in how to fight the fear of failure that permeates the culture. If you think ‘the fear of God’ pertains to divine expectation and the wrath of discipline, then a fear of failure is a dominant and inevitable force.
Fear is the knuckle cracking step-dad wearing a beer stained wife-beater.
There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed lovebanishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love. -1 John 4:18
Fear is the opposite of love. Fear marks the sign on the street corner: ‘The party ends in Hell.’ Fear sits on the shoulders of the kid who watches his ‘non-church’ friends play from his window. Fear is the pivot of the heel as the friend distances himself from the fall.
The fear is warranted. When you are living with the kind of religious responsibility required to be holy, the opportunity for stumbles and spills is overwhelming. You’re on a minefield of morality bombs and you’ve seen far too many comrades get blown to pieces right in front of you.
Fear is the knowing that in safeguarding yourself, there must be something that you’re missing. And they’re right. “Now if a person sins and does any of the things which the LORD has commanded not to be done, though he was unaware, still he is guilty and shall bear his punishment.” (Lev5:17NAS)
You can’t pick and choose in these things, specializing in keeping one or two things in God’s law and ignoring others. -James 2:8
No wonder people are afraid. Murdering is found in the same law as picking up a dead fly (Lev5:2NAS).
So, where does Jesus come in? He’s claimed when the man notices that he can’t reach the mark. The assumption is that he’s sufficient until he’s not, but at least there is a length of self-sufficiency and that length is the measuring tape for which he judges everyone else.
You’re either sufficient or you’re not. Jesus is not an extension cord. He’s not your safety net. He’s not your back up plan.
Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ. -Romans 3:21-22
You cannot make yourself holy. You cannot expect others to be holy. Sin is not evidence of a missing relationship with Jesus. Sin is evidence of a continual need for Jesus.
An inside track to God is not found in your good reputation. Jesus is the only way and you find your way to Jesus through awareness of sin. Your sin calls for grace and grace makes you sufficient. Your insufficiency is His specialty.
Grace is a supernatural gift that changes the recipient from unclean to spotless. The fear of the disillusioned self-sufficient is that forgiveness of sins opens the door to more sin. If a punishment doesn’t ensue, then the criminal has no reason not to offend again.
Grace is not a new suit, grace is a new identity. By the supernatural character of the gift of grace, the recipient is transformed and made innocent, not just by decree, but by nature. There is an innocence that was missing from them before. There is a desire to maintain the innocence and the lesson that only the guilty could have learned.
Grace makes you a better person because you have the wisdom of guilt and the heart of innocence.
You can’t do this for yourself. Soap can’t get all the sin off. ‘Being’ something you’re deeply not is no different than putting on another man’s suit.
‘You shall be holy because I am holy.’ -1 Peter 1:16
‘You shall’ is not just a command, it’s a proclamation. If God can speak four words and the sun appears in the sky, then He can speak four words and create His light in you. He commands it and it happens.
I’ve said it, and I’ll most certainly do it. I’ve planned it, so it’s as good as done. -Isaiah 46:11
Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’ So, it is finished.
| Tags: grace, holy
