Did you ever try to be holy? How successful were you? If you are like me, you found that the more you tried to be holy, the more difficult it became. Let's don't get confused. Being holy is not manifested by keeping rules or biblical standards of living. The world is filled with people who live by such guidelines, but do not know Jesus as savior and therefore cannot be holy. Is to be holy equal to being without sin? If so, are any of us really holy? My lawn chair hasn't sinned. Is it holy? Of course not. Therefore being holy must mean something different.
Being holy means to be sacred. When something is sacred, it has been set aside for God or his holy use. Of course, the more we identify ourselves as set apart for God, the more we will desire to keep from sin. But still that task remains an extremely difficult one. However, The Apostle Paul teaches an important principle for accomplishing this goal.
And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you: To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints. (1 Thessalonians 3:12-13)
From this passage, we can see that we have the potential to be unnameable in holiness. The means to such a state is through love. The more we love--whether it be toward God or man--the greater success we will have at living a holy or sanctified life. When we truly love our coworkers, we will not gossip, back bite or become envious at their success. When we truly love, we will have pity towards those who have fallen into sin. When we truly love, we will not view the opposite sex as a lust object. When we truly love, we will desire to lift people up instead of pushing them down. All of the latter works are those of a holy or sanctified person. If we want to be holy, we need to possess love.
Are you holy? The answer will be determined by how much you love. As the strength of a chain is determined by its weakest link, the strength or degree of your love is determined by how much love you have for the unloveable. So again I ask you, are you holy?
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