A Heart after Holiness

The pursuit of holiness is something I have felt the Lord bringing up in my own heart and challenging me to dive deeper in the topic on the blog. As I was reading the Word the last few weeks, I kept coming across verses that talked about the holiness of God and about the holiness that we can put on as we pursue a life of seeking to please the Lord. Every time I would read one of these verses, I felt the word holy/holiness jump off the page and I knew the Lord was drawing my eyes to this topic for a reason. I am excited to share what He has taught me about holiness!

HE is HOLY.

Hebrew 7:26 “Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens.”

1 Samuel 2:2 “There is no one holy like the Lord; there is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God.”

Holiness is part of the nature of God. As I spent time with the Lord and asked Him about this quality, I began to hear His heart. The holiness of God looks like Him having the purest motives always. He cannot think an unholy thought about us or about anything. His thoughts are just and pure and right all the time! Wow. His ways are higher, and His plans are greater because His heart is always in a state of holiness. His holiness is something we ought to show honor and reverence for because it is what He is due. He is Holy. He is the Great I Am, He is Yahweh, He is Adonai. There are so many beautiful names for Him and Holy is just one!

When I think about the holiness of God, all I want to do is bow my head and get on my knees! He is so worthy and so holy, and His majesty is beyond what my feeble body can handle. When we stop to focus on the holiness of God, we realize how small we are and how wonderful the love of God is that He would consider us worthy to stand in His holy presence.

Psalm 144:3 “LORD, what are human beings that you care for them, mere mortals that you think of them?”

He desires holiness for us because He knows as we pursue a life of holiness, we not only become more like Him, but our thoughts and our minds become more in tune with His. Holiness is not just running from the small and big sins this world wants to tempt us into, true holiness is a forming process that molds our thoughts, motives, heart’s desires, and actions into alignment with His way and His plan for us.

WE are HOLY.

Hebrews 13:12 “And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood.”

Leviticus 11:44 “I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. Do not make yourselves unclean by any creature that moves along the ground. I am the Lord, who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy.”

Our holiness comes through Jesus. Holiness is not something we can work up on our own strength or something that comes naturally in the flesh. Holiness is something we are clothed with because of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. 1 Peter 2:4 says, “As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” As we go to Jesus, we are being built into a spiritual house that can hold the holiness of His character.

           

           The sacrifice of Jesus makes us holy. His blood purifies us and makes us clean. We should pursue holiness because it is part of the reward of His suffering; it is part of the master plan of God. He sent His Son to die so that we could be whole. He sent His Son to die to bear our sins and shame so we could enter the holiness of His presence and allow His holiness to get on us. Let us allow the beauty of His glory and holiness splash on our earthly and sinful bodies and make them white as snow. Holiness is our birthright when we enter the family of God.  

BE HOLY.

Hebrews 12:9-10 “Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness.”

Hebrews 12:14 “Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.”

Holiness is an essential pursuit for Christians because of its importance in bringing others into the family of God. As we reflect and model a measure of the holiness of God, others will be drawn to the difference they see in us. Holiness sets us apart. When our actions and reactions to people outside the church reflect holiness, they are able to see the heart of God more clearly. 

What does it mean to be holy? Jerry Bridges in his book, The Pursuit of Holiness, describes holiness as being separated from sin and consecrated to God. We are invited into a life of holiness because of Jesus. Holiness lived out looks like freedom from the bondage of sin and close relationship with our Heavenly Father. Holiness is the habit of putting off the old self and putting on the new self (Ephesians 4:22). Holiness is something the Lord is inviting us into because He wants us closer to Him.

As beautiful and important as I think the pursuit of holiness is, I am not saying you must be perfect or completely holy to come into the presence of the Lord. The amazing thing about His grace is that we can come before Him in any condition and He will run to us and embrace our broken and troubled hearts. However, as we pursue a life that seeks to honor and please our loving Father, He invites us into greater depths of His holiness because He wants us to gain understanding of His ways and His heart. The only way we can gain a greater understanding of His heart is through pursing His character and part of His character is holiness. 

The enemy wants us to constantly question the holiness of God. In the garden, as Adam and Eve were living a holy, blameless life unto the Lord, the devil came to put doubt in Eve’s mind to make her question if this holiness was really what she was made for. The enemy convinced her that she needed something more than the holiness and purity her loving Father had given to her. She didn’t know at the time that this ‘more’ he was tempting her into would only lead to destruction, confusion, and pain. The world seeks to tempt us into lesser loves and passions that ultimately leave us feeling empty and wanting more of something we were never made for. We were made for holiness. We were made for close and intimate relationship with our Father.

Song of Songs 2:15 “Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyard, our vineyards that are in bloom.”

I pray we would be discerning in recognizing and catching the little foxes that seek to ruin the holiness and righteousness the Lord is clothing us with. These foxes may look like small compromises or insignificant practices, but they are the ones that over time will ruin the vineyard. I pray the Lord would show both you and I the small foxes that are hindering our hearts from pursuing holiness. 

Holiness is what we were meant for because Jesus is who we were meant for.  

As I was listening to a testimony in the documentary Furious Love, an Indonesian pastor named Philip Mantofa was talking about the Holy Spirit. He put this idea of a heart after holiness into beautiful perspective for me! He says, “In my life, all I want to do is to be able to call the Holy Spirit by His first name, if you are close with someone or familiar with someone, you can call him or her by their first name. His first name is Holy so I believe if I live a holy life I can be close to Him. I can climb God’s mountain, I can call Him holy, that’s my part. The Spirit part is His last name, it belongs to Him. Whatever He wants to do, if He wants to use someone recklessly or ordinarily, that is up to Him. Our job is the holy part.” Philip is comparing seeking holiness to knowing someone so closely that you can call them by their first name. The Holy Spirit is holy and as we get to know Him as a close friend, we can communicate in more intimate ways and know His character and His holiness and His heart to greater degrees. Philip believes the way to live a life that pours out the extravagant love of Jesus is to live a life holy unto Him. 

My heart’s desire is for holiness because I too want to be as close as I can be to the Holy Spirit. I want to know Him more intimately and I want every decision I make to be one that pursues His character of holiness. A good starting place for pursuing a life of holiness is acknowledging and declaring the holiness of God because from Him is where we receive our holiness. Our hearts are moved, our souls are stirred, and our spirits are joined with His when we join with heaven in singing,

“‘Holy, holy, holy

Is the Lord God Almighty,

Who was, and is, and is to come.’”

He is worthy. He is Holy. And He wants to see His people receive the immeasurably more measure of holiness that comes from a heart after Him.

♥ Melissa