I love the sentiment from this Catholic prayer of contrition. It indirectly points to the Good News: We don’t have to die rather than sin again. Jesus has died for us, paid the price, and won victory over death. Because of His sacrifice, God forgives us of our sin, all of it. Our only duties are to repent and believe in (put our trust in) Jesus Christ, God will forgive us of all sin and unrighteousness. And, He will give us the power to find victory over sin so that we do not have to live as a slave bound in darkness. We are free indeed.

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You have most likely heard the Native American legend about every person having two wolves living within them, one good and one bad. The Apostle Paul expressed something similar in Romans 7. He speaks of a constant struggle between his carnal self and his spiritual self, and it is one that has upset him beyond description. In fact, he finds himself tongue-tied trying to describe it. Paul is known for eloquence in writing. He was a master of the Greek language, and likely spoke Aramaic as well. In Romans 7, however, he talks in circles. Considering the problem on which he elucidates, talking in circles may be the only way to describe it. It is the problem of two natures battling within one mind. We are talking about What We Believe. Today, We believe in Sanctification, on Christian Holiness Daily.

Here are part of his words from Romans 7, as translated in the ESV Bible:

What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”⁸ But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. ⁹ I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. ¹⁰ The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. ¹¹ For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. ¹² So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

¹³ Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. ¹⁴ For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. ¹⁵ For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ¹⁶ Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. ¹⁷ So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. ¹⁸ For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

²¹ So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. ²² For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, ²³ but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.²⁴ Wretched man that I am!

Many people skip right over this section because they cannot understand it. Here it is in a nutshell: Because of my sinful nature – “my flesh” – I always do what is wrong. Why? Because there is nothing good within me. My spiritual nature wants to do right, but is too weak.

He then calls himself wretched.

In the next verse, he asks himself, “Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Who can help Paul? Only Jesus.

Ask any addict – whether addicted to pornography, drugs, tobacco, alcohol, or video games, and they will tell you that they cannot overcome it without help. According to the popular school of thought, alcoholics are never free of the addiction, and even a single drink can hook them again. We are weak, and must rely on a higher power. Even Christians cannot easily overcome their addictions.

What we speak of, though, is not just addictions. We speak of the bondage of sin. Satan puts us in chains and never lets us go. The vast majority of Christians go through life, still struggling against the chains by which Satan had bound them. The sad part is, it is not necessary. Christ stands with his hand outstretched, and in his nail-scarred hands, He holds the key to your chains. He is ready to free you. All you must do is allow Him.

To be clear, I speak of Christians who are still bound by sin. The reason so many Christians still live a carnal existence is that they have believed on Jesus enough to accept Jesus as Savior but refuse to believe enough to accept Him as Lord. Do you hear how silly that is? We believe that He can bring us back to life after we die, but He cannot free us from sin while we live. That is a sad statement.

He can, though. He can free us of sin. After salvation there comes a point where we must submit our will to Him, and follow Him with all our heart and mind and strength. Once we submit, He will infill us with His Spirit and free us from our sin nature. We then will have within us the nature of Christ, not the nature of sin. We call this sanctification. We are not, then, perfect, as some think. But we do become filled with His perfect love. This is called sanctification, and what I prefer to call perfect love.  More on this on tomorrow’s Christian Holiness Daily.

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Holiness is, perhaps, the most misunderstood concept in Christianity. Anyone who has striven to follow the life of Christ can likely tell you that it is impossible to do. No one can match His love, His grace, or His compassion. For no one but Jesus is perfect. Once the believer is filled with and empowered by the Holy Spirit, though, he or she is filled to the brim with the love of Christ, and desires nothing more than to please God and follow in Christ’s steps. The love of sin is gone. In its place is a love and passion for others. That is Christian Holiness. This is Christian Holiness Daily.

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Marks of a True Conversion

I suppose I may take it for granted, that all of you, among whom I am now about to preach the kingdom of God, are fully convinced, that it is appointed for all men once to die, and that ye all really believe that after death comes the judgment, and that the consequences of that judgment will be, that ye must be doomed to dwell in the blackness of darkness, or ascend to dwell with the blessed God, for ever and ever.

I may take it for granted also, that whatever your practice in common life may be, there is not one, though ever so profligate and abandoned, but hopes to go to that place, which the scriptures call Heaven, when he dies. And, I think, if I know any thing of mine own heart,
my heart’s desire, as well as my prayer to God, for you all, is, that I may see you sitting down in the kingdom of our heavenly Father. But then, though we all hope to go to heaven when we die, yet, if we may judge by people’s lives, and our Lord says, “that by their fruits we may know them,” I am afraid it will be found, that thousands, and ten thousands, who hope to go to this blessed place after death, are not now in the way to it while they live.

Though we call ourselves Christians, and would consider it as an affront put upon us, for any one to doubt whether we were Christians or not; yet there are a great many, who bear the name of Christ, that yet do not so much as know what real Christianity is. Hence it is, that if you ask a great many, upon what their hopes of heaven are founded, they will tell you, that they belong to this, or that, or the other denomination, and part of Christians, into which Christendom is now unhappily divided.

If you ask others, upon what foundation they have built their hope of heaven, they will tell you, that they have been baptized, that their fathers and mothers, presented them to the Lord Jesus Christ in their infancy; and though, instead of fighting under Christ’s banner, they have been fighting against him, almost ever since they were baptized, yet because they have been admitted to church, and their names are in the register book of the parish, therefore they will make us believe, that their names are also written in the book of life. But a great many, who will not build their hopes of salvation upon such a sorry rotten foundation as this, yet if they are, what we generally call, negatively good people; if they live so as their neighbors cannot say that they do anybody harm, they do not doubt but they shall
be happy when they die; nay, I have found many such die, as the scripture speaks, “without any hands in their death.”

And if a person is what the world calls an honest moral man, if he does justly, and, what the world calls, love a little mercy, is not and then good-natured, reacheth out his hand to the poor, receives the sacrament once or twice a year, and is outwardly sober and honest; the world looks upon such an one as a Christian indeed, and doubtless we are to judge charitably of every such person. There are many likewise, who go on in a round of duties, a model of performances, that think they shall go to heaven; but if you examine them, though they have a Christ in their heads, they have no Christ in their hearts.

The Lord Jesus Christ knew this full well; he knew how desperately wicked and deceitful men’s hearts were; he knew very well how many would go to hell even by the very gates of heaven, how many would climb up even to the door, and go so near as to knock at it, and yet after all be dismissed with a “verily I know you not.” The Lord, therefore, plainly tells us, what great change must be wrought in us, and what must be done for us, before we can have any well-grounded hopes of entering into the kingdom of heaven. Hence, he tells Nicodemus, “that unless a man be  born again, and from above, and unless a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” And of all the solemn declarations of our Lord, I mean with respect to this, perhaps the words of the text are one of the most solemn, “except, (says Christ) ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

The words, if you look back to the context, are plainly directed to the disciples; for we are told, “that at the same time came the disciples unto Jesus.” And I think it is plain from many parts of Scripture, that these disciples, to whom our Lord addressed himself at this time, were in some degree converted before. If we take the words strictly, they are applicable only to those, that have already gotten some, though but weak, faith in Christ. Our Lord means, that though they had already tasted the grace of God, yet there was so much of the old man, so much indwelling sin, and corruption, yet remaining in their hearts, that unless they were more converted than they were, unless a greater change past upon their souls, and sanctification was still carried on, they could give but very little evidence of their belonging to his kingdom, which was not to be set up in outward grandeur, as they supposed, but was to be a spiritual kingdom, begun here, but completed in the kingdom of God hereafter. But though the words had a peculiar reference to our Lord’s disciples; yet as our Lord makes such a declaration as this in other places of Scripture, especially in the discourse to Nicodemus, I believe the words may be justly applied to saints and sinners; and as I suppose there are two sorts of people here, some who know Christ, and some of you that do not know him, some that are converted, and some that are strangers to conversion, I shall endeavor so to speak, that if God shall be pleased to assist me, and to give you an hearing ear and an obedient heart, both saints and sinners may have their portion.

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The oldest business in the USA is not the Hartford Courant Newspaper, established in 1764, 254 years ago. It is not the Pottstown, Pennsylvania, Roller Mill in, established 293 years ago in 1725. The oldest business in the USA is not even White House Tavern established in 1673 in Newport, Rhode Island. 345 years old. The oldest business in the US is found in Charles City, Virginia.

Established in 1613, the Shirley Plantation has been run for 405 years by the same family. The beautiful farm, the childhood home of Robert E Lee’s mother, is today an National Historic Landmark. The bottom floor of the home is used only for tours. The Hill Carter family occupies the upper floors.

We are discussing the word established today on Christian Holiness Daily.

This week and next we are looking at salvation and how Good changes the lives of those who are saved. We’ve been drilling down into Colossians 2:6-7, which reads

Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

We’ve talked about being rooted, deep and wide, like a tree. We’ve talked about being renovated or built up. Today we look at the word “established.” Established in the faith.

What does it means to be established? Notice I’m not asking how one goes about establishing something – a business, for example. To establish something is the active sense of the word. The Greek word translated established here in Colossians – like the words translated rooted and built – is a passive word. We were established. It is something imparted to us.

It is saying, “The Hartford Courant was established in 1764” as opposed to saying, Thomas Green established the Hartford Courant.

Paul, a gifted Greek writer choose three tenses for this verse, something we would normally not catch. If it was important to Paul, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit to choose three tenses, then we should try to figure out why. The first clause, “As you received Christ Jesus the Lord is past perfect tense. It is done. It is a fact. It is over. We received Him, the Lord. It was a one-time event that need not redoing because He never leaves us or forsakes us.

As I said already, the words rooted, built up, and established are passive, and they speak to us about sanctification. Because they are passive, we know that Paul does not imply that the Colossians Church rooted themselves. They did not build themselves up. They did not establish themselves. Rather God rooted the in faith. God built them up. God established them in faith. And He established us, roots us, and builds us up in Christ, as He explains that it is God who established us in 2 Corinthians 1:21-22.

So what does the Greek word mean that is translated here as established? It can also mean to be attested.

So, God has given us Jesus as Lord. He had rooted us so that we may not be toppeled or fall. He has built us up, perfecting our love and our faith. And he has established us, attesting that we are His.

Do you see a trend. These verses speak to our salvation and the sanctification that follows, but it is all about Him. Our job is only to allow Him to work in us.

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Holiness is, perhaps, the most misunderstood concept in Christianity. Anyone who has striven to follow the life of Christ can likely tell you that it is impossible to do. No one can match His love, His grace, or His compassion. For no one but Jesus is perfect. Once the believer is filled with and empowered by the Holy Spirit, though, he or she is filled to the brim with the love of Christ, and desires nothing more than to please God and follow in Christ’s steps. The love of sin is gone. In its place is a love and passion for others. That is Christian Holiness. This is Christian Holiness Daily.

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Beverly Sinclair was a spinster heiress who lived in a mansion of enormous size during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She is the main character in a short story I wrote a few years ago. She was considered eccentric by folks who knew her, a spooky old witch by children, and foolish by most. Foolish because she – who never married and had no close family – lived with her three cats alone in a 42-room palatial home.

What made her eccentric was that the home wasn’t always so big. When she inherited her fortune from her father, the home was a impressive Victorian-style home with five bedrooms, a parlor, kitchen, dining room, basement, and three bathrooms. Over the years, she added two more wings to the home, including a gymnasium, indoor pool, sunroom, library, two additional kitchens, three formal dining rooms, two more parlors, ten more bedrooms and eleven bathrooms. She would build something one year and tear it down the next. She was never happy with the work, and always improving on it.

It was said that old lady Sinclair, as she was known, kept the same general contractor employed her entire life and that she would never hire anyone else to do the work. She hired him first in 1889 and he was still working on the place when she died in 1943.

Long after she died a girl from the local historical society discovered in her journals that Sinclair had been in love with the contractor but had never told him because she was married. He was the reason she had never married. Hiring him to renovate the home was the only way she could see him. Renovations continued until the day she died.

I did not write the story as an analogy of the Christian life, but when I read Colossians 2:6 and thought of the word built this story came to mind. Our walk with Christ is much the same as this story. When Christ saves us he goes to work on us, tearing out the old and building the new, adding a room here and testing down a room there. He loves us too much to allow us to live a dark, putrid life and we love Him enough to let Him enough to keep working.

Colossians 2:6 reads this way:

Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith

The word built in that verse is passive, we do not go build ourselves. Christ builds us and perfects us and does not stop working on us until death. Why? He is building and perfecting His body, His home, die He dwells in us, according to Acts 17:24. We are the temple not built by human hands. What then are we to do in this whole process? Allow Him to continue to work in us. Do not quench the Spirit of God (1 Thessalonians 5:19, Ephesians 6:30).

Besides, how can we, mere humans, expect to improve on what God builds?
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Holiness is, perhaps, the most misunderstood concept in Christianity. Anyone who has striven to follow the life of Christ can likely tell you that it is impossible to do. No one can match His love, His grace, or His compassion. For no one but Jesus is perfect. Once the believer is filled with and empowered by the Holy Spirit, though, he or she is filled to the brim with the love of Christ, and desires nothing more than to please God and follow in Christ’s steps. The love of sin is gone. In its place is a love and passion for others. That is Christian Holiness. This is Christian Holiness Daily.

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While I was thinning corn and preaching to Bud Robinson I could hear my brothers a few hundred yards away as they were plowing cotton. I could hear the rattle of their cultivators, the braying of the mules and the boys driving the teams. But as long as I heard anything that was going on I did not get the blessing. I finally knelt and offered prayer. I tried to consecrate soul, spirit and body. I remember that I stood up and the last thing that I turned loose was my hoe handle. I saw everything I had: my farm, my mules wagons and plows, and the crib of corn, the ricks of hay, and the pen of black hogs, and everything else floating off on the clouds.

I had begun to seek this blessing in 1886 and this was now the second day of June, 1890. There were four years that I had struggled trying to get perfect victory. I had often consecrated all that I had; I would put my mules, cows, hogs, corn and barn, and everything else on the altar and climb up on the pile and ask God to take us all, but that did not bring the victory. Beloved, the blessed old Book says, “Whatsoever touches the altar is made holy,” and I had not touched the altar. There was a stack of hay, and a corn crib, and several big mules between me and the altar, but when I saw everything I had drift away and I was left alone with God in the cornfield it seemed to me I could hear the Lord say, “I will bring everything back and leave it here with you and I will go; or, if everything else goes then I will stay with you.” I said, “Lord, let everything else go.” Then I had that strange, peculiar feeling that God was so close to me that my soul trembled in God’s presence and it seemed that God kindled up a fire in the very bottom of my heart.

The only way that I can describe the feeling is that anger boiled up, and God skimmed it off, and pride boiled up, and God skimmed it off, and jealousy boiled up and God skimmed it off, and envy boiled up and God skimmed it off, until it seemed to me that my heart was perfectly empty. I said, “Lord, there won’t be anything left of me.” God seemed to say, “There will not be much left, but what little there is will be clean.”

When my heart was emptied, then it seemed that a river of peace broke loose in the clouds. It was as sweet as honey and the honeycomb. It flowed into my empty heart until a few minutes later my heart was full and overflowing and the waves of heaven became so great and grand and glorious that it seemed to me that I would die if God did not stay His hand. How little we know about the fullness of God and the greatness of God’s power. Not half an hour before God cleansed me and filled me I had told the Lord that I wanted Him to come with all the power that He had and sanctify me. Then I had told the Lord that very morning that I had read in His Book that if I would bring all the tithes into the storehouse and prove Him He would open the windows of heaven and pour me out a blessing that there would not be room enough to receive it. Out of a hungry heart I had said, “O Lord, you cannot satisfy me with the windows of heaven; you will have to open the doors of heaven to pour out a blessing big enough to satisfy my hungry heart and soul;” but beloved, I did not know how large God’s windows were and how small my heart was. God had never used that language but one time before and at that time God opened windows, of heaven and poured out a flood on the earth. If God’s windows are so large that He can pour out a flood through them, then you can see at a glance that God’s windows are large enough, to pour out a blessing into the heart of one of His believing children to the extent that he cannot receive but little of it. As the waves of heaven rolled over my soul I finally got down on the ground and stretched out and as wave after wave of glory rolled over me, told the Lord that if He didn’t hold up a bit there would be a dead man in the cornfield.
From that day to this I have been convinced that God can kill a man with His glory just as quick as He could kill him with lightning. On one occasion Moses said to the Lord, “Show me thy glory,” and the Lord said, “You cannot see my face and live.” That proves to me that to behold the glory of God would be to look upon His face and no man in the flesh could behold God’s face and His glory and live. Therefore, in order to keep company with God, we will have to be glorified and this mortal will have to put on immortality.
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Holiness is, perhaps, the most misunderstood concept in Christianity. Anyone who has striven to follow the life of Christ can likely tell you that it is impossible to do. No one can match His love, His grace, or His compassion. For no one but Jesus is perfect. Once the believer is filled with and empowered by the Holy Spirit, though, he or she is filled to the brim with the love of Christ, and desires nothing more than to please God and follow in Christ’s steps. The love of sin is gone. In its place is a love and passion for others. That is Christian Holiness. This is Christian Holiness Daily.

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