Christian Holiness Journal | Page 21 | a record of struggle and victory to know the mind of Christ

Best of Christian Holiness Daily: Four Things Holiness Is Not

August 18, 2018 by ChristianHolinessDaily

I hate the thought of trying to be holy. It is a tiresome thought. It brings back memories of my youth, when I was scolded when my hair grew too long, or I wanted to go to a movie theater, or – God forbid – take a girl to a dance. To be fair, it was not my parents who scolded me for such things; it was the church. Holiness is so misunderstood, even by those who preach it and practice it, and -because it is so misunderstood, the struggle to be holy has scared off many who seek Christ.

1. Christian holiness is not the following of the Ten Commandments. While I truly believe that the Ten Commandments are the basis of good government and holy living, I don’t believe that following those commandments make one holy. Obedience to those commandments may make one morally strong, it will not make one pure. Holiness is not a life full of “Thou Shalts” and “Thou Shalt Nots,” rather such commandments serve to chain us, enslave us.

2. Christian holiness is not about obeying church bylaws. Rules and regulations within the church are fluid, changing from denomination to denomination, from generation to generation. As a boy, I visited a revival service where the evangelist preached that if we had not spoken in tongues today, we had likely lost our salvation. I can list dozens of rules that were once written in church manuals that have now fallen by the wayside. I realize now that what passed for Christian holiness then was nothing more than a struggle to maintain cultural norms in a changing society.

3. Christian holiness is not about church attendance. I understand wanting to be at church at every opportunity. Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday night services once were the norm for a Christian in American culture. But, being in church every time the door is open does not make one holy.

4. Christian holiness is not about serving or tithing. I believe in giving of both my money and my time, but neither of those make one holy. One cannot be holy by what one does. Holiness is not about service, actions, church attendance, tithing, or keeping the rules.

Face it, it is impossible for sinful, fallible humans live a life of Christian holiness. You may as well give up and stop trying.

It is simply impossible for a human to be holy. There is only one who is holy: Jesus Christ. It seems a paradox, but the first step to Christian holiness is the realization that you can never achieve it. The second step is the absolute surrender of your will to Christ. The next step is building a relationship with the one who created you, died for you, and was raised from the dead for you. Only an active, ongoing, daily walk with Christ can lead to holiness. Do you want to live the life of Christ? Then spend every moment that you can in prayer. Do you want others to see Christ through you? Then praise Him with every breath you take. Do you want to know what it means to really be Christ-like? Then devote your life to God’s Word.

Christ says in Luke 10.27 there are only two commandments that matter: “YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.”

Those two commandments will be the focus of this blog.
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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.

Why I Choose to Follow Christ at Any Cost

August 17, 2018 by ChristianHolinessDaily

We have looked, this week, at some incredibly difficult passages of scripture where we find people who have presented themselves to Christ only to hear words of warning from Jesus about the cost of following Him. From those passages, we have learned that salvation does not mean saying a certain prayer and then go on like nothing has changed. If we truly believe in Jesus, we will follow Him. Believing in Him means we give ourselves to Him even into the point of death, if it comes to that. Jesus tells us there is a cost to salvation beyond the price that He paid. Now we address the question, “Why would we want to offer our lives to Jesus?” Today on Christian Holiness Daily.

Why should anyone follow Christ? Because the alternative is eternal separation from His love. Because the alternative is eternal separation from all love. Because without Christ we will be eternally separated from all that is good, all that is pure, all that is lovely, and all that is comforting.

I follow Christ because He loved me before He even set the earth spinning on its axis. Because He died for me even though I am a filthy sinner. I love God because He first loved me.

Before I gave myself to God, I lived a life of sin, but i believed I was a Christian. I had said the sinners prayer. I believed in Christian. I believed in Jesus. I knew He is God made flesh, born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died, was resurrected, and ascended into heaven. I believed all that, but I still lived a life of filthy sin. I was on the path that C. S. Lewis called the “safest road to hell.” It is the gradual road, never too steep. It has no road signs that identify it. But the end of the road is eternal hellfire.

After I gave myself to Christ, if I strayed from the path I discovered all kinds of road signs; there was no doubt that I had strayed. God loves His children too much to allow them to wander too far before calling them back to His side.

A couple weeks ago, I talked about Hebrews 6 and said that so long as a Christian does not turn his or her back on God and stop believing, they cannot lose salvation. This is true. Now, today, I am saying that if one believes he or she will follow Christ with total surrender, counting everything else as loss. How, you may wonder do I justify that? How can both be true, you may wonder.

I think here is where we need to define what it means to believe. If one truly believes, one will follow Christ. If one then follows Christ, they get to know their Creator, walk with Him, talk with Him, then they cannot help but change. They cannot avoid being filled with His love. That doesn’t mean they cannot sin. That doesn’t mean they cannot turn back. It does mean that if they do sin, their sin is already forgiven. If they do turn back, the Holy Spirit will hunt them down and call them back home.

I willingly surrender my life to God no matter what the cost because He is a loving Father who wants to spend time with me, His son.

Monday we begin a conversation about how salvation changes our lives. Don’t miss The Best of Christian Holiness Daily tomorrow. And tune in to Christian Holiness Sunday for classic works of old time holiness preachers and writers.
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What Does It Cost You To Follow Jesus?

August 16, 2018 by ChristianHolinessDaily

Eritrea is called the North Korea of Africa. Cut out of the north end of Ethiopia, it is squeezed between Sudan and Djibouti on the Red Sea. It began its struggle to break away from Ethiopia in the 1960s and spent most of the next 50 years at war with that nation. The tiny nation has seen so much war that, for two years, it was responsible for the majority of refugees entering Europe. Even though the country has known peace in the past few years, its government – like that of North Korea – is so repressive, over 3% of its population has fled country.

Like most authoritarian nations, the elite grow obscenely wealthy, the masses starve, and the a dictator wrestles for control of freedoms, including freedom of religion. In Eritrea, about half the people are Islamic and the other half are Christian, but only three Christian churches are recognized: The Catholic Church, the Orthodox (Coptic) Church, and the Lutherans. All others are illegal.

Other churches may register with the government, but registration is such a complicated, lengthy, and invasive processes that the independent church registration has ground to a halt.

Many churches, then, meet in secret, illegally.

The Voice of the Martyrs just released the story of a worship leader in Eritrea – Helen Bethany – who was arrested for her participation in an outlawed church. She was imprisoned for 10 months, kept locked in a shipping container with a severely mentally handicapped woman. The woman physically abused her.

In spite of her imprisonment in such harsh conditions, Helen sang and prayed throughout the ordeal, even when guards beat her for it. She explains why she sang in this quote from The Voice of the Martyrs News, August 14, 2018:

When I was in prison just worshiping, [it] just kind of gave me strength. Also when you sing, it’s a heavy stone on the head of Satan, because he put you in these kind of things and when you start worshiping he is shocked. People don’t understand when something happen they close their door and cry … so he comes with other kind of [trials] or you repeat the same exam.

But when you start worshiping God … it is totally no space for Satan to attack you again and again.

What does following Jesus cost you? Your very life. Jesus tells us to consider the cost before we commit to Him, for we must give Him that which we love most: everything that we are, everything that we do, and everything that we ever hope to be. The cost is the commitment of our entire life. Our life is His to use as He pleases or to take as He wishes, for only He sees it from the unique perspective of the all-knowing creator of life. It is His breath in these lungs that I so foolishly consider my own. Who am I to argue with the very essence of life? All that I am is His.

My Tribute – by Andre’ Crouch

How can I say thanks for the things

You have done for me?

Things so undeserved yet You gave

To prove Your love for me

The voices of a million angels

Could not express my gratitude

All that I am, and ever hope to be

I owe it all to Thee

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