Be Holy

More often than not, Americans call a successful person as having a good job, a home, a couple cars, and maybe some pets. The problem is that I can't find the "American Dream" in God's Word. If I can't find the American Dream in the Bible, then what should I strive for and expect?

Yesterday was a little bit frustrating. It is kind of hard to explain how how it felt. I never doubted God's goodness, grace, mercy, and love. To be really raw and honest, I felt every emotion that I knew was possible. I experienced my humanity, while also experiencing God's peace and hope. 

1 Peter 1:15-16 "but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” This following quote by J.C. Ryle helps us understand what holiness is. "Holiness is the habit of being of one mind with God, according as we find His mind described in Scripture. It is the habit of agreeing in God's judgment, hating what He hates, loving what He loves, and measuring everything in this world by the standard of His Word."

When things don't go the way we planned, then we get our feathers all ruffled. We yell out "Where are you God? Why are you allowing this to happen to me? I have been a youth pastor, an associate pastor, a missionary, a deacon, a Sunday school teacher, etc." As long as we are making an absolutely poor attempt to control God by our earthly goals, we will never be satisfied with worshiping Him only.

I hate grocery shopping. I do it to help Naomi, but I really don't like it. She likes her certain brands of this and that. I have the spiritual gift of never buying everything on the list that she makes for me.

Grocery shopping is a great illustration for how we treat God. We want God's love, but we don't want His wrath. We want His mercy, but not His judgment. We want His grace, but... The list could go on and on. The problem is that we, mankind, are not capable of loving and hating at the same time. God, the Creator of all things, is fully capable of showing perfect love, grace, and mercy while showing hate, judgement and wrath.

God doesn't look at our resume, He looks at our faithfulness. We have to realize that we will never attain any level of holiness without God. God the Father can only look on us because of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross. To close out this blog, I want to leave you with a quote from Sinclair Ferguson, "The holiness of God teaches us that there is only one way to deal with sin- radically, seriously, painfully, constantly. If you do not so live, you do not live in the presence of the Holy One of Israel."

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