Grace Unto Holiness

[Crossfire]

Here's an article written by a friend a few years ago, a friend who has my utter most respect. I thought I would share it here just to see what kind of response the subject material would get from those who frequent this forum compared to it's response elsewhere in these forums.

Grace Unto Holiness
by Desirie Echols on Saturday, July 4, 2009

God says, "Be thou holy, for I am Holy." For many Christians that is a depressing scripture. Some wish they can just skip over it, or save it for another time. They tell themselves that sometime in the future they will be more "spiritual" and finally get to the place where they feel like they're doing okay. Hoping when they read it then, it won't make them feel so bad about themselves.

Others have dealt with the matter of holiness, by simply deciding that the whole idea of holiness the bible is referring to is just a spiritual state that I automatically attain because I have accepted Jesus. They believe that they are already holy, while not accepting that there is any requirement by God that their lives reflect spiritual truth.

For years much of the church has preached a tainted Gospel, a doctrine that mixes Law and Grace which the Apostle Paul warned about. We've been taught that holiness is a means to God's presence, rather than a result of His presence. As a result our generation, so eager to get out from under the condemnation of a legalistic Christianity, has abandoned holiness altogether. Legalism has no power to cleanse the souls and hearts of men that it labels evil. Holiness and purity, while often longed for, seem so far out of reach. How precious is the blood of Christ, which has the power to both wash away my sin, and to purge my conscience from the condemnation of sin AND from dead works.

God is calling for a revival of holiness! He is looking for a people willing to be set apart. Not out of condemnation or a false religious sense of obligation, but out of a love relationship with God and the grace He has supplied that has freed us from sin.

God wants to free us from both the burden of condemnation as well as the bondage of sin. It is the work of Grace that accomplishes both in our lives. We don't understand grace. By grace I have been given access to His very throne, and by grace rather than being struck dead by His Holiness I am transformed by it into the likeness of His Son.

Lord, free us from the spirit of religion!

"Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. (James 1:27)

Pure and undefiled religion is not about us. It is not about rituals and man made tradition. It's about being a reflection of God's love to a hurting generation. How can we reflect God unless we are willing to do as He does and say what He says and keep ourselves unspotted from the world? Jesus said if you have seen Me you have seen the Father, because He did nothing of His own authority. We can not reflect God to the world until it is no longer us who live but Christ in us. The truth is, it's not about earning God's love but rather becoming a vessel of His love.

A religious spirit takes true religion and twists the life out of it, so that all that is left is a self centered legalism and the condemnation of not ever measuring up. The spirit of religion has deceived us into believing it's all about us. Doing good results in spiritual pride and doing wrong results in condemnation. So many are stuck on this spiritual roller coaster. Religion keeps us so wrapped up in self that we lose sight of the needs of the lost. We are self focused and fail to move past our issues and short comings, disqualifying ourselves from effective ministry.

Our vision is misdirected. We are too busy looking at ourselves that we have forgotten how to seek out the face of God. It is only when we behold Him that we truly see ourselves and the reality of our spiritual state. We can't be holy until we have beheld His Holiness with eyes unveiled. Then we cry out like Isaiah saying, "Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The LORD of hosts. "(Isaiah 6:5) It is then that we are purged of sin by the coals taken from the fires of the altar. It is the grace of God that reveals my wretched state, and the grace of God that has paid for the wonderful exchange of my filthy rags for His righteous garments.

We have reduced the whole idea of "walking in the Spirit" to our meager attempts to deny our flesh it's desires to "flesh out." We give ourselves kudos for not "telling off" the person who mistreats us. We think our carnal efforts of self-control amount to a spiritual walk. Self-control while fruit of the Spirit, is not in and of itself the definition of "walking in the Spirit."

Truly walking in the Spirit results in a change of our nature. Our desires change, and we become partakers of His Divine nature. We become God conscious instead of self-conscious. Our entire identity is truly in Christ. We change because we are in tune with Holy Spirit and offending Him even slightly deeply moves and grieves us. We cry out in repentance, "Lord, take not Your Holy Spirit from me!" Because as we feel Him lift due to our disobedience, we are consumed with the Holy fear of taking our next breath without His presence. Learning to "walk in the Spirit", means learning that we cannot live even one minute without Him.

It no longer matters whether or not our compromise technically constitutes sin. We guard every spiritual window and change every habit, because if it offends Holy Spirit we can no longer tolerate it. We are "set apart" as our grieving spirit, that is intimately unified with Holy Spirit, retreats into the Secret Place of His Holy presence to escape this sin infested world and find rest. We weep and cry out to God like David and say, "Rivers run down from my eyes because men do not keep your law." (Psalms 119:136) The very sight of the world around us causes us cry out in intercession, asking that the Lord would somehow give us the grace to change the world we live in.

Lord, make us holy!

[Catlynn]

I feel as though I have much to say and yet all I can do is keep nodding my head. It is very late and I must be off to bed. I will return and comment on this thread another time but for now I just want to say, YES! You can never have true happiness without true holiness. A good friend and evangelist, Winkie Pratney, has a whole series called Be Ye Holy that is phenomenal! He shares that true revival comes when holy living is being taught.
Thank you for sharing this article! God bless you and your friend!

[Crossfire]

Originally Posted by Catlynn

I feel as though I have much to say and yet all I can do is keep nodding my head. It is very late and I must be off to bed. I will return and comment on this thread another time but for now I just want to say, YES! You can never have true happiness without true holiness. A good friend and evangelist, Winkie Pratney, has a whole series called Be Ye Holy that is phenomenal! He shares that true revival comes when holy living is being taught.
Thank you for sharing this article! God bless you and your friend!

Thanks Catlynn. I knew that you would be one of the few people who would appreciate such an article which is one of the reasons why I posted it here as well as in the Bible Study forum. I figured this article would probably do more good in this forum than the other.

A lot of believers today don't seem to understand how grace and holiness go hand in hand. Most churches today either lean heavily on grace or heavily on holiness with few actually understanding how grace actually inspires holiness. While the scriptures do indeed teach grace, they also teach that one person will enter into heaven without holiness. Most have been taught that holiness is a hypothetical state in the lives of a believer, that because of Christs righteousness you are holy when in truth your life proves otherwise. It's time that people begin to understand what a healthy view of holiness looks like.

Thank you for sharing this article crossfire. I really appreciate this.. People nowadays are preaching Grace without repentance and reverential fear for God..

[Jullianna]

Thanks for sharing this, Crossfire. I tried to read it last night, but I was too exhausted for anything to stick in my brain, so I saved it to read when I was awake.

Holiness is indeed the continuing work God is performing in us by His Spirit as we submit to Him and allow Him to remove all uncleaness from our lives. The external/obvious ones are easy. It's the innermost parts of the hearts and our thought lives that are so difficult, especially when we try to do this on our own, as those with legalistic mindsets will do.

This reminds me of an old song:

"Well I guess I only fooled myself
When I said I surrender all
For in a little corner of my heart
There was a kingdom that did not fall
So I stand here now before His throne
With my crumbled kingdom walls
For if You're not Lord of EVERYTHING
Then You're not Lord at all"


The Lord never meant things to be so complicated, did He? We make things complicated when we won't let unclean things go.

God bless you for your post!

[Liamson]

I said I belonged to you
but in a secret room I kept a secret list.
I said anything thing for you
anything but this anything but this

He knew it all along
He knew it very well
He knew the more I covered up my heart
The more I didn't know myself

He knew the sturdy walls I hid behind
were nothing but a prison cell

...I am not afraid anymore. I feel the wind of freedom like I never did before.

[Crossfire]

Originally Posted by Liamson

I said I belonged to you
but in a secret room I kept a secret list.
I said anything thing for you
anything but this anything but this

He knew it all along
He knew it very well
He knew the more I covered up my heart
The more I didn't know myself

He knew the sturdy walls I hid behind
were nothing but a prison cell

...I am not afraid anymore. I feel the wind of freedom like I never did before.

Very true. However, I think in many cases, once saved, most people don't realize that they're holding on to a lot of junk until they are actually confronted with it. The true test for every believer is whether or not we are willing to lay that stuff down at the foot of the cross, leaning on the indwelling Holy Spirit for strength and guidance in the face of temptation. The sad part is that many choose to hold on to this junk, not realizing that this stuff will not only hinder their growth in the Lord and blessing from the Lord but this junk could very well push you back several steps in your walk with the Lord.

I don't know about you guys but for me, the only thing worse than a blatant sinner is a complacent, apathetic Christian. It's too bad that much of the American church seems to me to be content with self gratifying, powerless Christianity.

[Jullianna]

Originally Posted by Crossfire

Very true. However, I think in many cases, once saved, most people don't realize that they're holding on to a lot of junk until they are actually confronted with it. The true test for every believer is whether or not we are willing to lay that stuff down at the foot of the cross, leaning on the indwelling Holy Spirit for strength and guidance in the face of temptation. The sad part is that many choose to hold on to this junk, not realizing that this stuff will not only hinder their growth in the Lord and blessing from the Lord but this junk could very well push you back several steps in your walk with the Lord.

I don't know about you guys but for me, the only thing worse than a blatant sinner is a complacent, apathetic Christian. It's too bad that much of the American church seems to me to be content with self gratifying, powerless Christianity.

PREACH IT!

[Jullianna]

Originally Posted by Liamson

I said I belonged to you
but in a secret room I kept a secret list.
I said anything thing for you
anything but this anything but this

He knew it all along
He knew it very well
He knew the more I covered up my heart
The more I didn't know myself

He knew the sturdy walls I hid behind
were nothing but a prison cell

...I am not afraid anymore. I feel the wind of freedom like I never did before.

Like.......................very much

[violakat]

I'm making this comment before reading what others say. So hopefully, I'm not reiterating what others have said.
This article reminds me of the of something that James McDonald discussed in a series that he's done in the past, about the Awesomeness of God. Basically, he stated that as a society (the world), we have lost sight of the holiness of God. He mentions that in Isaiah, the Angels didn't just call God holy, but they kept calling Him Holy, three times. As if to really put an emphasis on His Holiness.
------
I think, to often we try and say God is all loving and all forgiving, that we forget that God is also Holy. And that because He is so Holy, sin can not be in the presence of God. It simply disintegrates. And that we cannot appear before a Holy God because of our sin. It's not until the Blood of Christ cleanses us from all our sin, that we can begin to approach God. And when we choose to sin, we allow our old self to take over. So when God says, "Be ye Holy as I am Holy," we must choose to obey God.

[Catlynn]

Originally Posted by Crossfire

Here's an article written by a friend a few years ago, a friend who has my utter most respect. I thought I would share it here just to see what kind of response the subject material would get from those who frequent this forum compared to it's response elsewhere in these forums.

Grace Unto Holiness
by Desirie Echols on Saturday, July 4, 2009

God says, "Be thou holy, for I am Holy." For many Christians that is a depressing scripture. Some wish they can just skip over it, or save it for another time. They tell themselves that sometime in the future they will be more "spiritual" and finally get to the place where they feel like they're doing okay. Hoping when they read it then, it won't make them feel so bad about themselves.

Others have dealt with the matter of holiness, by simply deciding that the whole idea of holiness the bible is referring to is just a spiritual state that I automatically attain because I have accepted Jesus. They believe that they are already holy, while not accepting that there is any requirement by God that their lives reflect spiritual truth.

For years much of the church has preached a tainted Gospel, a doctrine that mixes Law and Grace which the Apostle Paul warned about. We've been taught that holiness is a means to God's presence, rather than a result of His presence. As a result our generation, so eager to get out from under the condemnation of a legalistic Christianity, has abandoned holiness altogether. Legalism has no power to cleanse the souls and hearts of men that it labels evil. Holiness and purity, while often longed for, seem so far out of reach. How precious is the blood of Christ, which has the power to both wash away my sin, and to purge my conscience from the condemnation of sin AND from dead works.

God is calling for a revival of holiness! He is looking for a people willing to be set apart. Not out of condemnation or a false religious sense of obligation, but out of a love relationship with God and the grace He has supplied that has freed us from sin.

God wants to free us from both the burden of condemnation as well as the bondage of sin. It is the work of Grace that accomplishes both in our lives. We don't understand grace. By grace I have been given access to His very throne, and by grace rather than being struck dead by His Holiness I am transformed by it into the likeness of His Son.

Lord, free us from the spirit of religion!

"Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. (James 1:27)

Pure and undefiled religion is not about us. It is not about rituals and man made tradition. It's about being a reflection of God's love to a hurting generation. How can we reflect God unless we are willing to do as He does and say what He says and keep ourselves unspotted from the world? Jesus said if you have seen Me you have seen the Father, because He did nothing of His own authority. We can not reflect God to the world until it is no longer us who live but Christ in us. The truth is, it's not about earning God's love but rather becoming a vessel of His love.

A religious spirit takes true religion and twists the life out of it, so that all that is left is a self centered legalism and the condemnation of not ever measuring up. The spirit of religion has deceived us into believing it's all about us. Doing good results in spiritual pride and doing wrong results in condemnation. So many are stuck on this spiritual roller coaster. Religion keeps us so wrapped up in self that we lose sight of the needs of the lost. We are self focused and fail to move past our issues and short comings, disqualifying ourselves from effective ministry.

Our vision is misdirected. We are too busy looking at ourselves that we have forgotten how to seek out the face of God. It is only when we behold Him that we truly see ourselves and the reality of our spiritual state. We can't be holy until we have beheld His Holiness with eyes unveiled. Then we cry out like Isaiah saying, "Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The LORD of hosts. "(Isaiah 6:5) It is then that we are purged of sin by the coals taken from the fires of the altar. It is the grace of God that reveals my wretched state, and the grace of God that has paid for the wonderful exchange of my filthy rags for His righteous garments.

We have reduced the whole idea of "walking in the Spirit" to our meager attempts to deny our flesh it's desires to "flesh out." We give ourselves kudos for not "telling off" the person who mistreats us. We think our carnal efforts of self-control amount to a spiritual walk. Self-control while fruit of the Spirit, is not in and of itself the definition of "walking in the Spirit."

Truly walking in the Spirit results in a change of our nature. Our desires change, and we become partakers of His Divine nature. We become God conscious instead of self-conscious. Our entire identity is truly in Christ. We change because we are in tune with Holy Spirit and offending Him even slightly deeply moves and grieves us. We cry out in repentance, "Lord, take not Your Holy Spirit from me!" Because as we feel Him lift due to our disobedience, we are consumed with the Holy fear of taking our next breath without His presence. Learning to "walk in the Spirit", means learning that we cannot live even one minute without Him.

It no longer matters whether or not our compromise technically constitutes sin. We guard every spiritual window and change every habit, because if it offends Holy Spirit we can no longer tolerate it. We are "set apart" as our grieving spirit, that is intimately unified with Holy Spirit, retreats into the Secret Place of His Holy presence to escape this sin infested world and find rest. We weep and cry out to God like David and say, "Rivers run down from my eyes because men do not keep your law." (Psalms 119:136) The very sight of the world around us causes us cry out in intercession, asking that the Lord would somehow give us the grace to change the world we live in.

Lord, make us holy!

What an awesome article! Re-reading it I found myself getting excited about the truth!
It's crazy how such a huge chunk of the bible teaches holy living and yet so few actually believe it to be possible.
Our entire lives come forth from the abundance of our hearts. What we do, say, think.....all of it comes from whatever state our heart is in. I believe that true holiness can only come from God doing a work in our hearts through His grace. Holiness involves a process of understanding (Light) something that God has shown us and conforming our lives to it. God is always giving us new things to understand, things to learn from and grow. The understanding is a process but the obedience (Love) should be immediate and complete. So often I think that those two things get confused. We feel that we should immediately understand things wholly and that it'll take our entire lives to complete the process of obedience or that we never can be obedient. We CAN be obedient to all that God has shown US to obey! God is infinite and therefore He is already completely holy but we are finite and therefore holiness will always be a process for us. But the condition of our heart is what God is looking at.
God is love. God is holy. God is good. "Be holy as I am holy." He SAID it! And IN Him, through Him, with Him, by GRACE we can do all that He has shown us and told us to do. The empowerment is in His command.
I've only recently began learning about church history. I want to look for patterns and remember what God has done. I've noticed, and heard from others, that any time in history that revival has broken out, Holy living was being taught. I thought that was pretty flippin cool, myself. ^_^
I feel as though, if we love (obey) Him, seek first His kingdom and focus all of our gifts on reaching the lost and loving on the widows and orphans of the world, instead of being so inwardly focused, that God will begin to do amazing things. Choose HIM and His will and His kingdom above all else and we will be an unstoppable, unshakable force in this world.
How awesome a life lived in Christ truly is!

Great post, Crossfire.

[Catlynn]

Originally Posted by Crossfire

Thanks Catlynn. I knew that you would be one of the few people who would appreciate such an article which is one of the reasons why I posted it here as well as in the Bible Study forum. I figured this article would probably do more good in this forum than the other.

Aww thanks! I did appreciate it very much.

A lot of believers today don't seem to understand how grace and holiness go hand in hand. Most churches today either lean heavily on grace or heavily on holiness with few actually understanding how grace actually inspires holiness. While the scriptures do indeed teach grace, they also teach that one person will enter into heaven without holiness. Most have been taught that holiness is a hypothetical state in the lives of a believer, that because of Christs righteousness you are holy when in truth your life proves otherwise. It's time that people begin to understand what a healthy view of holiness looks like.

Amen to that! Grace has been a powerful inspiration in my life toward holy living. I couldn't have gotten to where I am now without the Grace of God. He has designed everything to work together so perfectly and provided us with everything we need to live holy lives. ^_^

[Snackersmom]

Good article, IMHO. Grace certainly didn't come so that sin could abound. We should seek perfection because we want to please God.

A good wife wants to please her husband because she loves him, not because she's afraid that he'll leave her if she doesn't do enough to keep him happy. We should be the same way; our relationship with Christ is a sort of marriage.

P.S. When I say seek perfection, I mean constantly examining our hearts for anything that we need to give up to Jesus. I do not mean to imply that good Christians are always perfect, just to clarify

[GreenNnice]

Snackersmommy , our relationship is a father to a son and a father to a daughter, we are ALL 'sons of God' , male and femaele. We are His sheep, we are to make sacrifices akin to 'the lamb of God' dying on the cross.

Romans 12:1-2. : I beseech you therefore brethrens, by the mercy of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy , acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

Verse 2 goes on to say we should be transformed (life changed) by the renewing of our minds, and, to do this we must not conform (adopt) worldly ways in our life, materialism longing, needing to burn off my passions thru music with ill-fated, destroying words , movies with ungodly themes, etc. , and, I'm not judging, this IS scripture talking, just your hearing my green brains extract it all

So, not conforming to the world brings transformation of ourself through cleaNsing our minds of filth and all things tearing us from God's ability to bring His holiness and, this brings us into and understanding to prove that what is good, and, we are WHam! into duh-doo-doo (little wham song there for you ) God's perfect FREEdom for our life to follow Him.

And, isn't it interesting, and, all you seminary scholars will link this easy, but look WHAT word God uses for us to present our bodies as a living sacrifice that is acceptable to Him???

You know this song don't you . God is only wanting us on our knees, in complete reverence to Him, being holy, crying it too.

Holy - Nichole Nordeman (HQ + Lyrics) - YouTube

[Crossfire]

Awesome words guys & gals. It's very encouraging to see so many come to an agreement concerning a subject that is often times marred in controversy.

What's really sad is that with all of the self proclaimed bible scholars who frequent the Bible Study Forums in order to exalt themselves and their beliefs, not a one commented would comment on the very same article when posted there. Apparently they either don't understand holiness or simply don't care.

[GreenNnice]

Originally Posted by Crossfire

Awesome words guys & gals. It's very encouraging to see so many come to an agreement concerning a subject that is often times marred in controversy.

What's really sad is that with all of the self proclaimed bible scholars who frequent the Bible Study Forums in order to exalt themselves and their beliefs, not a one commented would comment on the very same article when posted there. Apparently they either don't understand holiness or simply don't care.

----
Hmmmm, crossfyre, let God be the judge of that. But, yes, it is extremely difficult to be holy and bible scholars , too, I can think might get tongue- tied.

Sometimes I think my green tongue should be tied

, and then other times it definitely should be knotted
--+
Seriously,
Though, it is. great goal for us to strive for all our lives , to live in God's perfect will , and, as Romans 12:1 says so true, to live that 'perfect will of God' for our life we must be holy. And , that is hard to understand, nicole n. sings of what God wants of us in life and this next song speaks of our dumbness in understanding what real holiness really is . Your post goes a long ways to helping people know

Addison Road - What Do I Know Of Holy w/Lyrics - YouTube