Holiness

"But as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, 'Be holy for I am holy.'"                   1 Peter 1:15-16   Leviticus 11:44-45.  NKJV

In other words, set your life apart, fully to God and be holy as God has commanded. Set apart means what it says, we belong to God, not ourselves. Holiness says we say, 'No, to the demands of our flesh and live totally for God. 

Note the words, 'all your conduct.' This means in everything we do, and that means 'everything.' We cannot compromise on this. We can't have things our flesh wants and be holy too. One has to go. Make sure it's compromise.

We should always remain alert, with a clear mind focused on God, as we walk each day with Him. 'It's impossible to live that way. How can I live and be holy?' You can and it's not impossible or God would have told us so. Instead, He told us to be holy just like He is.

We need to be set apart. This means to be separated to God so that as we live for Him, we become more like Him and we learn to take on His nature. We're not made holy by giving all of our money to worthy causes anymore than we're not holy because we have read the bible through, many times. This is commendable but in so doing, you might end up skint and very knowledgeable to the theory of things but not from the heart, so that you know God the way He wants you to.

Holiness comes little by little by spending time with Jesus; being led by Him in all that we do and being, 'sold out,' for Him. As we do this, we become more like Him. When we're really walking with Jesus, we have the attitude of, 'What would Jesus do about this?' and 'What would Jesus say?' And this turns into true holiness.

Perfection is not what we're seeking here. In fact, someone once told me, and I don't really doubt him, that the root of perfection is fear. He had a point because, to strive for perfection means we can become fearful when we realise that we can't do this and this can cause us to fear that someone else can.

All in all, I feel we should concentrate on what God tells us to do - 'Be holy, as I am holy.' It may take a while but it's well with the effort.

Copyright 2019 Grahame Howard 

dailylifewithjesus@protonmail.com