My One Resolution for 2012: Holiness

As I have spent the last several weeks ruminating about the
accomplishments, the position, and future of my life. After some 40+ years,
like many men, I forecast and speculate that I have much to answer to God
for. Many men of my age hit a mid life
crisis and play the “Woulda, Shouldda, Coulda game”. This is that depressing period of life where
they look back at the glory days of high school and wonder “Why did I not
conquer the world, achieve my dreams, or stand above all others”? It is a terrible bog to wallow in.

Personally, I find myself thinking about standing before God
is judgment, wondering what I have to show for my Christian walk. I have missed so many opportunities. I have read countless books and failed to
heed the warnings within. Though I have
grown and have had some great highlights, I am starving for more of God and
want to gain many more wins in my struggle against all forms of worldliness
(read that sin). So over the last
several weeks I have been seeking God for a definitive direction. I believe
that God has clearly provided me with a compass through the scriptures.

The answer to all my dilemmas is the pursuit of
holiness. Consider it a personal
striving for personal revival. I want
this. I want it greater than
anything. In reflecting over my life
from earliest memory to the finish line of life that I want to be able to
cross, Holiness is the key.

Therefore, I would like to share with you my reasoning for
why holiness will be my objective of 2012.
These are thoughts that are forming within me a renewed way of thinking
about life and the opportunities that God will allow this year.

Holiness is the only fitting response to trials. James and Colossians talk of working out and
being sanctified in trials. It adds much
to our lives by de-cluttering our thinking and our heart. Holiness is what causes us to count it all
joy when we face trials, for we are thankful for the perfection it moves us
toward.

In all things we are to glorify God. If God is not honored by the prayers of one
who cherishes his sin, then He is not honored by the acts or works of someone
who is not holy. (PS 66:18, Col 1:10, 3:17) Repentance and scripture application play a
huge role in the sanctification of the soul.

Worship requires a holy preparation. I have spent a lot of time considering the
tabernacle and the things that went into its daily service. This leaves me convicted that my worship
should be first met with preparation in a solemn way. I should never casually or flippantly regard
the name of God or my opportunities to meet with Him.

If I am holy I spend less time correcting the sins of others
and place that resource on my own sanctification. True, I am to be my brother’s keeper and to
shepherd the flock, but I must do so without any beams or planks in my eye to
help them remove their specks of sawdust.
Along those lines, If I am seeking to be holy myself, I am putting my
efforts into someone I can do something about rather than not. This should produce humility. It also causes me to experience the struggles
and exertion required to walk closer with God.
Therefore, I am better able to help others in this same pursuit without
dispensing pat “Sunday School” answers to problems like pray, repent, read your
bible, and go to church.

Holiness provides a distinction apart from the world. It causes us to abide in Christ and to
therefore be at peace and produce spiritual fruit. Being separate from the world is an act of
worship. It also fulfills the admonishment
to let our light shine before the world and do our good acts that they would
praise our Father.

Jesus said to be holy because He is holy. This alone is the foundational reason for a
child of God to seek holiness. Putting
to death sin is a grand honor unto God.
It is a choosing of all He is above all the temptations and offerings of
the world. (Lev 20:7, 1 Peter 1:16)

D. L. Moody once said “The world has yet to see what one man
completely sold out to God can be used for”.
And I wish to echo the truths of revivals of old, without holiness no
one will see the Lord.

J C Ryle on Holiness

Quotes from J C Ryle in his book Holiness

As I spent many mornings over the past few months reading slowly through Holiness by J C Ryle I found myself challenged and insufficient. And I am grateful. Ryle has a way of exposing our heart in love. 111 years after his death, his writings are still relevant. I also add, they are timely. For he does not write of his own accord or opinion as so many flash in the pan writes do. He writes from scripture, applied to living by means of justification and sanctification, and that will never fail to be timely.

Many more quotes could and should be posted from this book. I however leave you with these.

Sanctifying faith is a grace of which the very life is action: it worketh by love and, like a mainspring, moves the whole inward man.

We are frequently told that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law, by St. Paul. But not once are we told that we are sanctified by faith without the deeds of the law.

What do such expressions as fast, gay, wild, unsteady, thoughtless, loose mean? They show that men try to cheat themselves into the belief that sin is not quite so sinful as God says it is, ant that they are not so bad as they really are.

People will never set their faces decidly toward Heaven and live like pilgrims, until they really feel that they are in danger of Hell.

Sanctification does not consist in the occasional performance of right actions. It is the habitual working of a new heavenly principal within, which runs through all a man’s daily conduct, both in great things and in small.

We must be holy, because this is the one grand end and purpose for which Christ came into the world.

In short, to talk to men of being saved from the guilt of sin, without being at the same time saved from its dominion in their hearts, is to contradict the witness of all scripture.

We Must be holy, because this is the only sound evidence that we have a saving faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

We must be holy, because this is the only proof that we love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.

God has said it and He will not go back: “Without holiness no man shall see the Lord”. The pope’s calendar, says Jenkyn, “only makes saints of the dead, but scripture requires sanctity in the living”.

Tell me not of your justification, unless you have also some marks of sanctification.

The child of God has two great marks about him, and of these two we have one. He may be known by his inward warfare, as well as by his inward peace.

My marks and scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me that I have fought His battles, who will now be my redeemer”.

He will not break any bruised reed, nor quench any smoking flax. He will never let it be said that any perished at the foot of the cross.

It is vain to suppose you will feel assured and persuaded of your own pardon and acceptance with God, unless you count all God’s commandments concerning all things to be right, and hate every sin, whether great or small.

The believer who follows the Lord most fully and aims at the highest degree of holiness will ordinarily enjoy the most assured hope and have the clearest persuasion of his own salvation.

It is an awful truth, and worthy of all consideration, that knowledge not acted upon, in God’s sight, in not merely useless and unprofitable. It is much worse than that. It will add to our condemnation and increase our guilt in the judgment day. A faith that does not influence a man’s practice is not worthy of the name.

Before we pass on, let us remember that a true Christian may have many a blemish, many a defect, many an infirmity, and yet be a true Christian nevertheless.

Beware of selling your Sabbath for the sake of a good place! Remember Esau’s mess of pottage. Beware of Lot’s choice.

You have only got to walk in Lot’s steps and make Lot’s choice, and you will soon come to Lot’s state of soul.

It is amazing to observe how readily people catch at the least excuse for misunderstandings the things that concern their souls!

It is a solemn warning, when we think of the person Jesus names. He does not bid us remember Abraham or Isaac or Jacob or Sarah of Hanna or Ruth. No, He singles out one whose soul was lost forever. He cries to us, “Remember Lot’s wife”.

Great privileges misused bring down great wrath on the soul.

But you are forgetting that the grand object of the gospel is to persuade men to “flee the wrath that is to come”, and that it is vain to expect men to flee unless they are afraid. Well it would be for many professing Christians if they were more afraid about their souls than they are now!

Do you ever try to do good to others? If you do, remember to tell them about Christ.

Great is the danger of him “that believeth not”, the danger of him that “loveth not” is equally great.

“.. if you do not love Christ, let me plainly tell what is the reason. You have no sense of debt to Him.

If Bible words mean anything, to be without the Spirit is to be without Christ.

But you may depend, there is no ignorance so common as so mischievous as ignorance of ourselves. Yes, men may know all arts and sciences and languages, and political economy and statecraft, and yet be miserably ignorant of their own hearts and their own state before God.

Like people afflicted with colorblindness, they are incapable of discerning what is true and what is false, what is sound and what is unsound. If a preacher of religion is only clever and eloquent and earnest, they appear to think he is all right, however strange and heterogeneous his sermons may be. They are destitute of spiritual sense, apparently, and cannot detect error.

But while we are thankful for the increase of public religion, we must never forget that, unless it is accompanied by private religion, it is of no real solid value, and may even produce most mischievous effects. Incessant running after sensational preachers, incessant attendance at hot crowded meetings, protracted to late hours, incessant craving after fresh excitement and highly spiced pulpit novelties- all this kind of thing is calculated to produce a very unhealthy style of Christianity and, in many cases I am afraid, the end is utter ruin of the soul. For, unhappily, those who make public religion everything are often led away by mere temporary emotions, after some grand display of ecclesiastical oratory, into professing far more than they really feel.

When great professors backslide in public, and the church is surprised and shocked, the truth is that they had long ago backslidden on their knees. They had neglected the throne of grace.

Take any commandment of the ten, and let us examine ourselves by it. We have broken it repeatedly.

Holiness and its Workings

In seeking holiness, I want to see the hand of God at work. I pray that within our church we see things that can only be explainable by God. Thus He is glorified. Sunday night, after having had a week where we looked upon God in our suffering, our prayer request time was more about praises than requests. Wow.

Why Holiness?

One of the aspects in seeking God and holiness in my life is simply a desire to put the world behind and seek God. There is a wonderfulness in the journey. I see this being part and parcel with Romans 12, the renewing of the mind.

It is hard to build a sandcastle when the tide keeps rolling in. That is to say the worldly influences will continue, but to build a good castle you need to move beyond the tide line.

One of the beauties of this is also reliance upon God. I don’t believe I have done that to a point of honoring and glorifying Him. So again, this is not to elevate me above anyone, that is not a concern, but it is to find that of God which I have been missing out on. I want to know the joy of being a people separated unto God.