Holiness

Holiness has been the call of God’s people since before Abraham, and since before Abraham God's people have struggled to be holy. God has always spoken to the ones he has chosen and told them to live separate. To be consecrated to His plan, and since before Abraham we have never really truly been set apart. The word holiness means to be consecrated or sanctified. In Romans 12 and 1 Peter 1 it is also used to distinguish what God’s people should look like as opposed to what the world looks like. Romans gives us the charge to not conform our lives to the pattern of this world. Another definition for holiness is to be set apart or be separate. It means there is an obvious life style difference. In 1 Peter it says to “prepare our minds for action” it goes on to instruct us to be, “self-controlled.” These are powerful instructions, ones that demand an intentional life change, not a mere good intentions. Romans says that,” we are not to conform to the evil desires we had when we lived in ignorance.” This is another instruction that takes work. We are to have our minds renewed, which means a complete reboot of our software. I believe that the modern church is in a world of hurt in this area. We are so afraid of legalism that we have forsaken God’s wishes for His people to be holy. Many of us have conformed to the desires we had. Now I am not saying that the Christian church is a free for all with sin, but you would be hard pressed to find much difference in the life style of some, common, Sunday morning church attendees and their, “unsaved” co-workers. Allow me to give to examples, and I will add that I am incriminated myself while I do so. Our culture is a very powerful thing. I will mention to of the most powerful idols that we have on this planet, sports, and music. I am sure that you have heard the expression, “music makes the world go round.” If that is true we are in trouble. Take a moment and evaluate what you have in your ipod. If you were to break down with a percent, what would be greater? The amount of music with a Godly topic or music without a Godly topic? For most people the majority is not Godly, I would even bet that many, “Christians,” have some pretty vile stuff on their ipod. We say things like, “there is just no good Christian music out there,” or , “It’s the edit version.” That one always gets me, because basically what that means is that they bleep the cuss words while talking about sex, drugs, and alcohol. Two things with this, first of all, if music really is powerful enough to make the world go round and the majority of what you are putting in your mind is not Godly, even if it’s not bad, then can you really ever expect to have the mind of Christ, how will your mind ever be renewed. We have the powerful force of music and are using it to fill our minds with ungodly things. Take a moment and evaluate what level of Godliness you intentionally put in you mind on a daily basis. Is it an hour’s worth? Half hour? I would venture to say that few of us put an hours worth of Godliness a day into our minds. So if we sleep for 8 hours that means in a day we are allowing our minds to be filled with 15 hours of junk and 1 hour of Godliness and then expecting to be everything God has called us to be. These seem like unrealistic expectations, wouldn’t you say? Secondly, think about who the devil is. While in heaven he was the worship leader, and now, as the prince of this world music is incredibly powerful. True we are never to fear the devil but my fear is that we have underestimated his plans and abilities. He has taken the gift he has and put it in the forefront of almost every environment that we walk into on a daily basis. He has created all levels of it. He has mellow levels that are not as noticeable, and deeply demonic levels that are obvious. No matter how you look at it music can be strongly demonic. Next, are sports. If we had modern day golden calves this would be it. Think about it, most true sports fans have spent way more money on going to games, clothes, and memorabilia then the would ever give to a church or ministry. On game day across America we have millions of people that flock to stadiums to yell, scream, and cheer for other humans to win a game. Some even dress up like absolute idiots. We spend more time overly praising our teams than we do truthfully and spiritually worshiping God. Many men that are addicted to sports spend more time surfing ESPN.com, while their wives feel disconnected, than they do learning about their spiritual growth. If you are getting angry that I am tearing apart sports and saying that I am so over board and a legalist, I challenge you to evaluate the amount of time you have spent this week following sports verses the amount of time you have spent building your relationship with God. This is the tough one for me because I am coming to some hard truths about myself. I have always been a huge sports fan. But anything that masters us is wrong. I used these two examples because of there incredible power and our ability to write them off as, “not big deals.” But to truly live a holy life means that the smallest areas matter. To be holy as He is holy means to live for him in the smallest areas of life. Lastly, I want to state that this is not a matter of salvation. In 1 Peter 1-12 it basically says that we are saved by grace and that salvation is free. This theme is woven throughout the New Testament. Time and time again it is stated that we are saved by the power of the cross and now our own works. Then in verse 13 it says, “therefore, prepare your minds for action…” He is saying that since you have received your salvation for free live a life that is passionately after God’s heart. Please remember this, a life style that is set apart for holiness is not to be a burden or legalistic. It is not to purchase salvation or receive the promise of heaven. A life style set apart for God should come out of a response to the understanding of His love. When we truly understand what He has done for us then we will desire to live fully for Him. I agree that legalism is wrong. I prefer to look at it like this, it’s the difference between obligation and desire. God does not obligate us to live right, His hope is that we will desire His will for our lives.