Holy begins to shine clear and brilliant when it is stacked up against.....

Holy begins to shine clear and brilliant when it is stacked up against what is not. As I sought out what HOLY is and sought it for my life I knew it was what God was. Paul said to be imitators of God, and try as I might I could not be anything close to His character and grace. Camping with my daughters and grandkids this came screaming at me like a bug on the windshield. My 11 year old granddaughter was acting like eleven year olds act and I was more concerned with my comfort than her peace of mind. I knew this wasn’t holy. Try as I might I could not change this, I could decide to, I could even take a run at it but in the end I was the bug on the windshield. I love my granddaughter and I want to care about her more than my comfort.

            I believe this grief beginning to take hold of me over this issue was in fact the Holy One responding to my cries to know holiness. A. W. Tozer said it well. “God is holy with an absolute holiness that knows no degrees and this He cannot impart to His creatures. But there is a relative and contingent holiness which He shares with angels and seraphim in heaven and with redeemed men on earth. This holiness God can and does impart to His children. He has made it available by the blood of the Lamb.” I ecstatically rejoice that God sees me as perfect  in Jesus Christ.

            If we are going to seriously get involved with God, we need to be careful what we ask for. He takes us at our word, so we would be well not to speak recklessly. At the beginning of the year I told God I would be willing to be anything that He wanted me to be. I would change anything about me that He wanted to change. This may seem easy to you, but I kind of like me and didn’t want to lose me. I had now become willing to lose me in Him. For the sake of going farther into Him than ever. I think this is holy.

            I can’t make myself more holy, I can only strive towards “hating sin and loving righteousness”.

As this becomes my desire He begins to peel the layers back on my life so He can get to the core.

This is what God wants, me as me, not me buried in the muck and the mire of compromise and lethargic pursuit of some bland, boring, colorless, flavorless, inane, lifeless, limp, milquetoast, stale, tasteless, weak, wishy-washy kind of so-called holiness. No man can say “I am holy”, but neither can the words “Be Ye Holy; for I Am Holy” be ignored.

            Hating sin and loving righteousness is not pointed outward, it is pointed inward. One of the things that God has laid bare in me is that conversations with my fellow human beings seem to all be slightly stained with some inward desire to look good or to put the blame for anything on something else besides ME. The moment I need to explain my decision or action I have just violated Jesus saying “let your yes be yes and your no be no”. Justifying ourselves is something we take for granted and have learned to live with and think it a natural thing. In fact, you may be thinking I am crazy, critical or kooky for even bringing this up, but if we would strive to “be holy in all our conduct”. We must begin to consider these things. Immorality, drugs and drink are called the big sins. I think they are just symptoms of much deeper sins that we have painted and dressed up to look acceptable.