July 31, 2021
Holiness
When I was a kid, my mom wanted us to go to Christian school. We attended a Pentecostal Christian school until I was 12, but then it closed. The only other Christian school in our area was a “holiness” school, you know, the guys in long sleeves and the girls in long dresses…basically liberated Amish! They basically treated my sister like a rebellious Jezebel because she had short hair and wore makeup…anyone who know her knows this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Unfortunately, because too many people used the word “holiness” to describe “legalism”; holiness became kind of a bad word in the Christian world. However, true holiness isn’t a list of rules and regulations. It has nothing to do with length of a woman’s hair, the length of a man’s sleeves, women in skirts, or any of the many oppressive teachings that have come to be equated with the term holiness.
Holiness isn’t a list of rules, it is a calling. It is a well-documented Biblical fact that we as believers are called to live holy lives and pursue holiness.
1 Peter 1:15-16 says:
As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said, “I am holy; you be holy.” MSG
So often when we talk about finding and following our God-given calling, our minds automatically define “calling” as something that we do—our vocation. Yet, as we read through the New Testament we find that our calling is much less about what we do and far more about who we are—the men that God wants to shape us into.
A large part of our calling as men who are following God is a call to pursue holiness. Basically, this means becoming more like God.
God is holiness. He is pure. Sin has no part in Him. We need to strive to become like God and remove he sin from our lives.
That’s why I believe that it is time we abandon both legalism as well as compromising and just get back to living the way the Bible tells us to live. We need a return to the standards of the Bible if we are truly to walk in our calling.
Memory Verse: As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said, “I am holy; you be holy.” (1 Peter 1:15-16, The Message)
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.