Holiness

I’ve been thinking about holiness a lot lately.  Maybe it’s because our Sunday School study has been on that topic as we study I Thesssalonians; maybe it’s because Jason has been talking about purity on Wednesday nights.  Whatever it is, I’ve thought about what it means to be ‘holy.’ 

 

I’m pretty sure I understand what it means to be unholy.  The language of my coworkers is proof on a daily basis of sin in the world.  Television and movies hardly give us examples of purity (and, no, I’m not talking about Dora the Explorer or Hannah Montana).  And don’t get me started with all of the temptations of the Internet.  I’m surrounded by unholiness, for Pete’s sake! 

 

Holiness is a topic that runs through the entire Bible.  God tells the Israelites to “be holy, because I am holy.” (Leviticus 11:44).  The writer of Hebrews 12:14 says to be holy for “without holiness no one will see the Lord.”   Peter tells Christians in his letter to be holy again and again, calling us a “holy nation’ (I Peter 2:9).  The idea of holiness is that we are to be different, separated from unholiness, set apart… 

 

I Thessalonians 4:3 tells us point blank one aspect of the will of God for our lives: our holiness.  Most of our Bible versions will render the word ‘holiness’ as ‘sanctification.’  That’s a five-dollar word, I know, but one Christian writer put it this way:  

“Sanctification is that inward spiritual work which the Lord Jesus Christ works in a man by the Holy Ghost, when He calls him to be a true believer.  He not only washes him from his sins in His own blood, but He also separates him from his natural love of sin and the world, puts a new principle in his heart and makes him practically godly in life.”  J. C. Ryle, Holiness

 

That’s a pretty awesome definition of what God wants for you and me!  To become ‘practically godly in life’ seems like a pretty tall order for sorry old me, though.  How does this happen; why is God so interested in my holiness?  Bear with me.  I think this illustration describes how holiness comes about: 

“…imagine yourself as a living house.  God comes in to rebuild that house.  At first, perhaps, you can understand what he is doing.  He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised.  But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense.  What on earth is he up to?  The explanation is that he is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards.  You thought you were going to be made a decent little cottage: but he is building a palace.”  C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

 

God wants to do something awesome in our lives if we will surrender to this process of becoming ‘holy.’  Here’s what I want you to think about this week, just one simple question to apply to your life:  Am I becoming more or less holy in my life, and what is causing me to go in the direction I find myself going?