Category: Holiness

Fear Not 365 -For God Hears…

February 25, 2017 by ChristianHolinessDaily Leave a Comment

Not long after King David turned his throne over to his son, Solomon, along with the job of constructing the temple, he died.

God appears to the young King Solomon and says, “Ask! What shall I give you?”

God is no magic genie that we should ask anything of Him, but, in this case, He does exactly that: He offers Solomon his heart’s desire.

You and I could probably not be trusted with such a wish, but Solomon had learned well from watching the failures of his father. He does not ask for wealth, or power, or love. He knows that riches may lead to evil, and excessive power could lead to abuse. Lust leads to infidelity, and sometimes to death. Instead, he asks for wisdom.

If we look back to 1 Chronicles 22:12, we read that David had prayed that God would grant Solomon wisdom and understanding. In chapter 1 of 2 Chronicles, God answers David’s prayer and grants great wisdom to King Solomon.

Much of Solomon’s wisdom was eventually recorded in the Bible, in the book of Proverbs. One proverb that catches my attention is 15:29, which reads,

The Lord is far from the wicked,

But He hears the prayer of the righteous.

– NKJV

I wonder what Solomon thinking when he wrote that proverb? Did he think of that prayer, the prayer of his father, asking God to give Solomon wisdom? Was David perhaps the righteous man Solomon thought of when sharing that piece of wisdom?

If you’ve stayed with me to this point, you may see a paradox here. In one paragraph I suggest that Solomon learned from his father’s failures, and in another I propose that David was the model for the righteous man praying.

This is really no paradox. Both may be true. You see, there exists no truly righteous man but Jesus Christ. Not David, not Solomon, not Peter, not Paul; none are righteous. With a broken heart and true repentance, David sought forgiveness for his sins. By faith, he learned to trust in God, and by faith, through the sacrifice of the Son of God, he was found righteous in God’s sight. In the same way, you and I, through faith in Jesus Christ, can be counted righteous in God’s eyes.

It took David most of his life to develop the faith necessary to live a holy life. I can relate. I’m not there yet, but I am finally headed that direction.

By the way, James refers to Solomon’s proverb, and his thoughts contain sound advice for the Christian journey:

…confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

– James 5:16 NIV

FEAR NOT, for God hears the prayers of the righteous.

Change My Heart

September 24, 2016 by ChristianHolinessDaily Leave a Comment

I have often heard it said that everything will be revealed on Judgement Day, that even our deepest, darkest, nastiest secrets will see the light of day at the throne of God. That’s what I’ve been told.

This is, I believe, a distortion of the truth. While it’s clear that God will reward followers based on what they have done with the gifts He has given them, it is also clear that the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin.

Have you ever heard someone say, usually with disdain, “They’re only fooling themselves,” or “Who does he think he’s fooling?” We often – no, not often – MOST of us really do deceive ourselves MOST OF THE TIME, and try to put on our “best face” for others. A wise old man once told me, “Inside each of us are three people: there is the me that I see. There is the me that others see. And, there is the me that only God sees.

The Bible tells us that man cannot know his own heart, for it is “deceitful above all things.” God knows it, though. He sees all the closed doors, the locked up cabinets, the hidden passages, and the secret compartments. He knows us better than we know ourselves.

Now, here is the good news. He sees all our secrets and all our sins and loves us anyway.

One more thing…

If we want to follow Jesus… If we want to be holy as He is holy (which God expects of us)… Then we should ask God to search our hearts and reveal to us those places where we hide sins, and then to rid us of those sins.

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

And renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Do not cast me away from Your presence,

And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of Your salvation,

And uphold me by Your generous Spirit.

– Psalm 51:10

There is an old hymn that we sang when I was just a boy, Search Me, O God. It is my prayer:

Search me, O God, and know my heart today, Try me, O Savior, know my thoughts, I pray; See if there be some wicked way in me; Cleanse me from every sin, and set me free.- James Orr, 1936.

Christ: a Loving Master

September 23, 2016 by ChristianHolinessDaily Leave a Comment

Paul, a Jewish scholar, or Pharisee, before becoming a Christian, described the experience of sinners as being bound in chains. This is something with which Paul was intimately familiar. Before surrendering his life to Christ, he had hunted down Christians, tried them, and oversaw their executions. No doubt he had many in chains.

Later, he himself was chained while awaiting trial, jailed for his Christian beliefs. He was eventually executed, as he had executed others.

Paul, though, used a similar term to describe his relationship with Jesus Christ. He called himself a bondservant. In fact, so did James, Peter, and Jude. Paul even described Jesus as a bondservant, doing the will of the Father. So, one may wonder, then, why escape the bonds of sin just to be enslaved by Christ?

Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James…

Jude 1a

To understand this, we must look at the difference between a someone who is a slave or prisoner and a bondservant.

The Greek word translated as bondservant in many Bibles is translated slave by many others. Either translation is technically correct. As a Pharisee, though, Paul knew that the equivalent Hebrew word was applied to a special kind of slave, a bondservant.

The word bondservant is the perfect word to describe a true follower of Christ. A bondservant is a slave who loves his master so much that he petitions to become permanently bound to him. You see, many slaves could earn their freedom or purchase their freedom. A bondservant, on the other hand, took legal action to avoid ever being separated from the master.

Here’s the thing. You have never experienced true freedom unless you have bound yourself to the Master. He is a loving Master, one who protects you, cares for you, provides for you and adopts you into His family. He rids you of your sinful nature and replaces it with His holy nature. By giving yourself wholly to Him, He creates in you a clean, pure heart.

He breaks the chains of sin and death that bind you. His love compels you to become His bondservant.