Pursuing Holiness
I was
striking up a spiritual conversation with a man in the mall Monday with thte
Singing Churchmen in Cleveland,and I began asking him of his musical
interests. He was a Believer and the B3
player at his church. I asked him if he
just picked it up on his own or did he ever take lessons and he said he took
lessons when he was young but didn't like it and didn't like his teacher. My wife is a piano teacher and has about 40
students, and I told him how I have observed through the years that virtually all
of Julie's piano students want to play the piano. But not all of them want to LEARN to play
the piano. They think that just because
they take piano lessons from Julie and carry the label of being a piano student
that somehow they will just become pianists.
Not all the students count the cost of what it takes to become a piano
player. There is something they must do
everyday - it is called practice!
I think
the same thing may be said of Christians who don't really practice their faith
everyday and somehow think they will be all that God wants them to be by just
having a belief system in the heads and their name on a church role, but not
striving for holiness.
Now I
know that Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:21, "I am the righteousness of God
in Christ Jesus." And I know that
many preachers love to proclaim this "positional truth" to their
people with the intent of getting them to stop thinking they have to do things
to achieve or earn a state of righteousness from God. I believe that the soul that has truly
invited the Lord Jesus to come into their heart and has received God's
forgiveness of their sins has also become an inheritor of eternal life. God in His mercy and grace will look upon us
who have truly called upon the name of the Lord Jesus for salvation, and He
will declare us righteous when we stand before Him at the judgment. So don't get me wrong - I am not about to say
that we need to do anything to win God's favor because we can't! But
being a disciple of Jesus Christ is a journey in the pursuit of holiness. This is called sanctification, and the Bible
encourages us to endure the race we have begun with the assurance that He who
began a good work in us will be faithful to complete it.
Here
are a few scriptures that speak to this pursuit of righteousness: (Notice the choices that are up to you to
make in this pursuit.)
Is 33:15-17 He who
walks righteously and speaks uprightly, who despises the gain of
oppressions, who shakes his hands, lest they hold a bribe, who stops his ears
from hearing of bloodshed and shuts his eyes from looking on evil, he will
dwell on the heights; his place of defense will be the fortresses of rocks; his
bread will be given him; his water will be sure. Your eyes will behold the king
in his beauty; they will see a land that stretches afar.
You
have a choice as a Believer as to where you go, what you say, what you do with
your income, what you choose to listen to and what you choose to look at. According to God's Word, the choices you make
in these things will determine whether or not you dwell on the heights or the
depths, whether or not your defenses will be like rocks or paper, whether or
not you will struggle for the necessities of life, and whether or not you will
"behold the king in his beauty" and sees His Kingdom. Someone may say "Oh, but that's from the
O.T. - those people had to watch how they walked, but we don't have to
because we live now under grace and Jesus will forgive us for all our sins"
as if God just overlooks all of our sins and forgiveness is just an automatic
benefit for the Believer. Jesus did not
die on the cross to give us a license to sin.
He calls us to follow him in crucifixion so that we would die to self
and live in Him with His commandments now written in our hearts and stop
sinning, living a life of obedience to Him!
The people in Paul's day were dealing with this same struggle in the
pursuit of holiness and what did he tell them? Romans 5-6 says, "There's
no sin He cannot forgive, His grace is big enough to cover all of our
sins. Where sin abounds, his grace abounds
even more! But what shall we say then,
shall we continue to sin that grace may abound?
God forbid! How shall we who are
dead to sin continue to live therein?"
So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness. (You must do the "fleeing" part and the pursuing part. How good are you at that? Whatever your answer, strive to be a better "flee-er" and pursuer)
Romans
10:4
For Christ is the end (the purpose, the final
result, the target) of the law (the Torah) for righteousness to everyone who believes. (You must do the
believing part. Can you let go and trust
Him more?)
2
Timothy 3:16
All Scripture is breathed out by God and
profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. (You must do the reading and
studying of the scriptures in order to be trained and to show thyself approved. Can you get into it more?)
Proverbs
2:6-20
For the Lord gives
wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding; he stores up sound
wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice and watching over
the way of his saints. Then you will
understand righteousness and justice and equity and every good path. (You must do the walking in integrity
part. Can you be more careful and
conscious of how and where you walk?)
We are
not just following a set of mental philosophies or internal beliefs. The question is, "Do you really want to
please the Lord and show him you love him in gratitude for what He has done for
you? Jesus said, "If you love me, (here is what you can do to show that
love) keep my commandments!" When
he said that, the NT had not yet been written, so what commandments do you
think he could have been referring to? Someone
asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was and you remember that he said the
first is Love the Lord thy God with all your heart and the second is love thy
neighbor as thyself. I have heard people
deduce from these words of Jesus that we are simply to love God and love each
other. But when Jesus stated that these two
commandments were the greatest, he further said , "and on these two hang all
of the Law and the Prophets" - meaning that all of the laws can really be
categorized as being under the heading of how we respond to God and how we
respond to each other. But Jesus also
said in Matthew, "For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear,
not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means
disappear from the Law (the Torah or God's Instruction) until everything is
accomplished." So, I think that we
are to seek to obey God to the fullest - not because we have to in order to
earn salvation or earn anything from God, but because we get to. We want to tell Jesus how much we love Him
and He is the one that said, "If you want to show me your love, the best
present you can give me is to keep my commandments." And I think this not only applies to the
written commandments, but also the commandments that He speaks directly to only
you.
Lastly,
what do you do with this verse:
1
John 5:18
We know that everyone who has been born of
God does not keep on sinning, but he
who was born of God protects himself, and the evil one does not touch him.
Is there anyone here who is born of God and
has stopped sinning altogether? What
does John mean to say in this verse? Some
paraphrases of this verse interpret this to say that a true Believer does not
make it a practice to keep sinning, and that Jesus will protect the Believer
from the Evil one. All I can do is
explain it this way: In this earthly life we will never be sinless, but the
longer we live in this life we should sin less.
Let's just encourage each other along the way to be diligent in our
faith and keep confessing our sins and let's be that army rising up to bring
glory to our great God and HIs Kingdom!
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