Seeking Holiness – Our Heart With God
God is holy, Can we be holy? How do we relate to holiness? Is seeking holiness our goal? Well, first lets see the Bible command.
15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”[a]
19 I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. 20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in[a] Christ Jesus our Lord.
To me, the most compelling text is in John 3.
2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears,[a] we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3 All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.
Think for a moment. God says be like me, holy. Then, he writes that if we hope to be in heaven with God, then we should naturally purify ourselves from all unholiness. See also Confess Your Sins to Each Other.
Seeking Holiness With The Right Thinking
First, let me note, the kingdom of God is not a place of fear to earn God’s approval. We do not seek holiness to placate God.
We also must be careful not to seek holiness to gain approval in our Christian fellowship. Pride is dangerous to our souls.
Let me come back to naturally purifying ourselves. If we have come to faith by surrendering ourselves to God who loves us, died for us, and know us better than we know ourselves, then naturally, we want to be like this great God who claims us.
It is our admiration for and love of God our Father that draws us to His culture and way of living.
So holiness is something God is working out in us. In truth, God often purifies us the most by taking us through hardship.
One other command around this topic is found in Romans 12:2.
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
One key is that if we conform to the world, the American culture, a political party or any other such group, then we are conforming to the world and not letting God transform us inwardly.
Note again God is doing the transforming, We must make ourselves available to be transformed.
We surely need to spend time with God to become like him. As children of God, we need to spend time with mature Christians who have grasped this idea. We become like those we spend time with. God is at work in us. Are we available to be transformed? Is our heart position to seek holiness? Spend time with others on the same path and especially spend time with God, Our goal is to be like him.
