The Burden for Holiness

I have a burden. Do we get burdens anymore? It seems like we jump from church to church looking for places that will give us an emotional high without any burden. I wonder if that's possibly something that hinders the holines of the church. Can we be holy people when we really have no burden to know God, or to understand Him? Why do we have this aversion to feeling like we have to know our creator more? The more I think about it, the more I believe that a little bit of burden and discomfort might help to push our spiritual lives in the right direction.

That's what has started this blog. God has given me a burden to teach what He has inspired through His Word. The command to "be holy for I am holy" is pretty plain. I realize that holiness offends people and makes them uncomfortable, but the Bible teaches it. I think that the time has come for God's people to come together with scriptural holiness, or the command to "go and sin no more," as the motive. I know that some don't think there's any way it can happen in this life, but if that's the case why did Jesus command it? That's what it all comes down to. When will the body follow the commands of the head, Jesus Christ?

The call to be holy

Leviticus 11:45 says, "I am the Lord who brings you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy (NKJV)." Holiness seems to have turned into a four-letter word within the church today. Peter quoted this verse from Leviticus in the New Testament, but we continually tell ourselves that holiness is not something that is possible for us today. It seems to me that there is not much gray area in this verse. It looks like God is calling us to be pure.

To be holy simply means that we are set apart for God for His purposes. How can we claim to be God's people, put here to do His work, if we are not set apart for Him? Doesn't the Bible say that you cannot serve two masters? If we cannot be holy then how can we serve God? How can He be our King if we can either serve one master (Him) or continue to sin? Can the command of Jesus to "go and sin no more" be any more clear? People have told me that those specific commands "aren't really for us." If we're going to use that logic then I could just as easily say that the great commission was only for the disciples who were present at the ascension of Christ.

We seem to spend a lot of time in the church talking about how we can grow, and how we can get people to act in certain ways. I think the Bible has already given us the answer. BE HOLY! We are trying to treat symptoms of the problem. You can treat symptoms of a heart attack all you want, but if the problem is not stopped you are still going to die. That's where we're at today. We are content to let God's church die in comfort. We continue to treat symptoms of a sickness within the body, but we never address the real problem. We're not holy. This blog is a call for all of the people out there who feel like something is lacking in their spiritual walk to get together in motive, and, through the work of God's Spirit, become the people that he wants us to be.