Kingsway

Hebrews 12:14 (ESV) Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.   1 Peter 1:15-16 (MsgB) As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God's life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. [16] God said, "I am holy; you be holy." 

We know God is Holy … although we struggle to define what that really means … or get our small minds around the concept of a totally holy God. We also know we are called to be holy … to pursue holiness … to live as holy men and woman of God … but what does that mean? The pursuit of holiness … honestly when you think of “holiness” what words come to mind?  - Hardship ... hard work … never get there … punishment … serious ... denial … unattainable … striving … burdensome ??

I have found holiness to be a two-sided coin – sacred (sacrosanct) on the one side and devout (pious) on the other. The devout, pious side is an outcome and expression of the sacred (sanctified, set apart, etc). But the church has focused on devout, rules, behaviour, conforming to certain expectations and have made devout = holiness (without the sacred).

A question I would like to start with … is what do you think God is up to in a person … what is God’s heart … what is Christianity to do to a person … what is it’s effect to be on us. I believe the answer to this is critical to your view of holiness. I believe Jesus is the model of what God is up to in our lives. Jesus says that as our good shepherd, he is leading us. What an encouraging thought. Jesus is leading you, and he is leading me. He is shepherding us. True, we may not know exactly what God is up to in this or that event in our life. But whatever else is going on, we can know this – he is always up to our transformation.

God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name.

After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun (Romans 8:29-30, The Message).

God has something in mind. He is deeply and personally committed to restoring humanity. Restoring you. This is good news, by the way. All of the other things we long for in life – love and friendship, freedom and wholeness, clarity of purpose, all the joy we long for – it all depends upon our restoration. You can’t find or keep good friends while you are still an irritating person to be around. And there is no way love can flourish while you are still controlling. You can’t find your real purpose in life while you’re still slavishly serving other people’s expectations of you. You can’t find peace while you’re ruled by fear. You can’t enjoy what you have while you’re envying what the other guy has. On and on it goes. God wants us to be happy. Really. But he knows that in order for us to be truly happy, we have to be whole.

Another word for that is holy. We have to be restored. How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He’s the Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him. Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. (Ephesians 1: 3-4, The Message) Whole and holy. The two go hand in hand. O, how important this is. You can’t find the holiness you want without deep wholeness. And you can’t find the wholeness you want without deep holiness.

The goal of Christianity for you and for me is restoration … whole and holy … and Jesus’ life is our model of what that is like … wow. I believe holiness is a matter of the heart … and a pursuit of a genuine holiness is worth whatever it costs, because it is a restoring of who you really are. I believe if we have a true vision of genuine holiness we would be captured by it.

You want that but you don’t want that, you wish you could but you really don’t, and why is this going on inside? The guilt you feel when you lie straight-faced to a friend. And they find out. The hours you’ve wasted harboring resentment. The embarrassment of your addictions. You know what plagues you. Now, what would it be like to never, ever do it again? To not even struggle with it.

What would your life be like if you were free of all that haunts you? O, the joy, the relief it would be to be transformed. That in itself would be more happiness than most of us ever experience. And – as if that’s not enough – it would free us to live the life God has for us to live. Psalm 119:32 (ESV) I will run in the way of your commandments for you set my heart free.  Freedom and running in the way of holiness … I doubt many people put those two thoughts together … but that’s the beauty of our restoration. 

What is the greatest commandment … Love your Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Loving God is the first thing to look for in relation to holiness … NOT stuff NOT fear of God NOT performance for God NOT knowledge about God … but loving God. Not that these things are bad or wrong … they are good things to go after and grow in … but they often are much higher on our list of what holiness is and looks like.

The second greatest commandment is to love others … how I treat people is a reflection of my holiness … how I speak to them … etc Holiness is a matter of the heart … it’s the process of restoration. We so often think and look at behaviour when we think of holiness … and yes that is kind of true of course because what we do is important but ultimately true holiness is a matter of the heart … it is internal to external … heart first … then emotions, will, intellect, behaviour …  The good news of the gospel is that we can have the life Jesus lived … yes that’s the mystery, but it’s also the miracle.

Holiness is not to be feared, or avoided, or considered too hard to try … it is to be embraced … not so much as a pursuit we strive for … but as a life we delight in as by His love we are made whole … and holy … restored … everyday