Practicing Holiness - Part 1

1 Peter 1:13-16 Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

How does holiness apply to today? True Christian Believers are called saints in the Bible, but what does that mean? The gospel of Jesus Christ describes the incredible blessings of grace & salvation, but how are we then to put into practice, to live in the light of, those blessings? Our Friday evening Small Group Bible Study examined and considered these questions on “living out” our faith in holiness as a natural and usual course of action and behavior. Deb commented on the last post, saying: “Obedience is better than sacrifice. I'm so glad God didn't create us to be mindless puppets, but that He gave us free-will to choose to be obedient out of our love for Him. Obedience brings us closer to looking and behaving and representing the Jesus we say we believe in.” So right. The Bible tells us that we can not obey two Masters (Matthew 6 & Luke 16) and that we are slaves to either Sin or righteousness (in Romans 6), the question is “Where does our obedience reside?” Every kingdom has a king, including the kingdom of Heaven. Who sits on the throne of our heart as the king that we obey? Who do we belong to and obey? Practicing holiness is being set apart from sin and unbelief for God’s purposes, and obediently doing them; not out of fear, not just out of duty, not just out of what He did, is doing and going to do, but out of love of God (Father, Son & Holy Spirit).

1 Peter 2:9-12 “But you are a chosen race, A royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.”

More on this next post.
Blessings, in Christ, Brian