Posts

Posted on

Why God’s Commandments Still Matter

God’s commandments still matter

The last 60 years have seen a sustained and successful campaign by the ACLU and individuals to remove displays of the 10 Commandments from schools and public spaces. The effect on the public consciousness has been dramatic. Many see the idea that God’s commandments are relevant for determining right and wrong as outmoded. Today “experts” appeal to so-called established science and ignore the Bible. Even Christians have come to see this as normal and the way it ought to be. People assume falsely that the Constitution prohibits bringing the Bible and its commandments into the argument as we discuss moral and ethical questions in the public sphere.

And of course that mindset spreads, permeating everything else in culture, from entertainment to business, from education to technology. At the local and personal level, many people regard God’s commandments as irrelevant to daily life. Secular society has marginalized God and his commandments, pushing them to the edge of the page, or off the page entirely.

What could be further from reality? Removing God’s commandments from public view does nothing to diminish their authority over every human being.

God’s law is not outdated

The truth is God created and sustains all things and designed and created humanity. He alone knows what brings life and what causes disease and death. No one is more relevant to how we as humans flourish than God, and he has told us how to do that in his benevolent commandments. In love God gave all his commandments. For our highest good and his highest glory he gave his law.

James 4:12 says, “There is only one lawgiver and judge.” God is the lawgiver. Jesus is the lawgiver. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Just as manufacturers provide instructions for how to use a product safely and for optimum usefulness, so God gave his rules for living.

God’s law is above every human law

God’s laws are more important than the U.S. Constitution, than the Bill of Rights, than the laws of the land, than the employee handbook of your company. God requires us to treat his laws with ultimate respect. We should seek to learn them and follow them in all things: sexuality, business, how we speak to each other, marriage and family life, how we spend our money, what we think about, how we spend free time—everything.

To deliberately disobey and ignore these commandments is to be lawless. Ignoring God’s commandments is infinitely more serious than ignoring the U.S. tax code. It is infinitely more serious than an NFL football player ignoring the rulebook. What lawless people ignore is we must answer to God. Although people who earn money must answer to the IRS, the punishments it can decree for nonpayment are limited; God’s punishments are unlimited. They are forever.

Isaiah 33:22 says, “The LORD is our judge; the LORD is our lawgiver.” God both decrees the law and then upholds it as judge. Hebrews 9:27 says, “It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.” Final judgment for every person is coming, and at that time we will answer to God for whether we carefully sought to know and keep his commandments or whether we ignored them.

The Lawgiver who offers forgiveness

Why are God’s laws ultimate? Because he created and sustains us moment-by-moment. He thus owns us. We are not independent, self-existing creatures. God created us, and he defines our existence. Ultimately we answer to him alone for how we treat others, how we treat ourself and God’s world, and how we treat God.

None of us is anywhere close to perfect. We are all lawless to different degrees. But thankfully, God has provided a way through faith in Jesus Christ to be forgiven and accepted by God. Romans 4:7 says, “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.” Lawlessness can be forgiven, but only through faith in the one who perfectly obeyed God’s commandments and then intentionally died on the cross not for his own but for our lawlessness.

Posted on

When We Make Excuses for Disobeying God

God’s commandments still matter

A few days ago as I drove down a Chicago side street that had cars parked on each side of the street, I saw a car with a yellow, Denver boot fastened to one of its wheels. A Denver boot is not footwear; it is a device for making it impossible to drive one’s car. The boot is attached to the car of a person who is a scofflaw, that is, someone who scoffs at parking laws.

I’ve seen a person walk up to his car, see a ticket, remove and read it, and then toss it on the ground and drive away. My research found that, in Chicago, the Denver boot is attached to the car of someone who has

  • 3 or more unpaid parking, red-light camera, and/or automated speed-enforcement tickets that are in final determination status; or
  • 2 unpaid tickets of those types that are more than one year old and in final determination status.

Eligible vehicles are subject to booting after an official notice and opportunity to pay or contest. So the boot is intended to force scofflaws—lawless parkers—to start honoring the law, to park legally, and to pay what they by law owe.

Of course, no one likes parking tickets, except the city treasurer and mayor, but it is the law. I am not on a crusade to champion parking laws, but this illustrates something important. This shows how the spirit of lawlessness comes home for each of us. When we do not want to follow a law, when a law is inconvenient or costly to follow, what do we do? Heed the law or ignore it?  When we choose not to obey a law, for whatever reason, we walk in the spirit of lawlessness.

How we rationalize disobedience

What is a lawless person certain to do? Rationalize it. Again, using parking as an example we all can relate to, if a lawless person ignores parking laws, he tells himself, I’ll only be here for 15 minutes. But this attitude can express itself in relation to all God’s commands related to things such as sexual behavior, handling money and possessions, the content and tone of our words, the willingness to forgive those who hurt us, how we treat the poor, and so on.

How Eve rationalized disobeying God

The first human to rationalize breaking the law was Eve in the Garden of Eden (see Genesis 3). God had commanded, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” God had laid down the law.

But Eve had other ideas. Satan said to her:

“Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”

And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”

But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:1–5)

Now notice how Eve, feeling tempted, rationalized breaking God’s commandment in three ways:

“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” (Genesis 3:6)

Why God takes every sin seriously

How serious did God treat this seemingly minor infraction? With ultimate seriousness. For Adam and Eve had done far more than eat a piece of fruit; they had intentionally broken the command of the Holy One. They had chosen to ignore God. They had behaved lawlessly. That is what explains the cataclysm that followed for them and all humanity.

Although the three rationalizations of Eve had a measure of truth to them, it was wrong to make them an excuse not to do the most important thing, which was to obey God.

God rightfully takes his commands with infinite seriousness. That is why Jesus had to suffer and die on the cross, and why he alone is able to save us from the guilt of our lawlessness through faith in him. He is the only human ever to obey God’s law perfectly, and so his perfect righteousness made him the one person who could atone for our sins and save us from the guilt of lawless living.

None of us will obey God perfectly in this life, but we do not have to be lawless.

This article and theme probably sound foreign to your ears. That is not surprising, because we live in a culture characterized by the spirit of lawlessness, by a rejection and marginalizing of God’s commandments, by a denial that God has the authority to tell mankind how to live. Because we swim in a cultural ocean of lawlessness, it is especially important that we recognize it and understand it, lest we on the Last Day have a Denver boot placed not on our car but on our soul.

So, keep reading in the weeks ahead. Remember the words of the apostle Peter to his contemporaries that certainly apply to Western culture: “Save yourselves from this crooked generation” (Acts 2:40).

Posted on

What Happens When We Disobey God?

God’s commandments still matter

Imagine that the CEO of a large American company gave a clear order to all workers of his company, and every single worker ignored him. Let’s say he set a policy that everyone had to work in the office, not at home, three days a week, but everyone ignored the policy and worked from home five days a week.

One month after implementing the CEO’s policy, the head of human resources reports to the CEO: “No one is paying any attention to your policy.”

What do you think the CEO would do? Would he say something like, “Oh well, don’t worry about it.” Or, “I guess I had a bad idea. My employees certainly know what is best for the company.” Or, “I need to chill out. Who am I to tell our employees what to do?”

No, that would not happen. The CEO would begin disciplining and firing employees, starting with his vice presidents.

The Lawgiver

Think now about God. He gives commandments to every member of humanity. Isaiah 33:22 says, “The LORD is our lawgiver.” For example, God gave the two tablets of stone to Moses on Mount Sinai, on which were written the Ten Commandments.

what happens when we disobey God?

How much attention do most people pay to those commandments? How much thought do you give to God’s commandments? God gave many other commands in addition to the Ten Commandments. Have you ever studied the Bible to learn what God commands you to do and not do?

We know what a corporate CEO would do if his policies were ignored. What does God do if people ignore and disobey his commands?

Continued next week

Posted on

How Can My Guilt Before God Be Removed?

I live on the 20th floor of a high rise in downtown Chicago, and our building is surrounded by one-way streets. I regularly see drivers accidentally turn onto a one-way street going the wrong direction.

The nature of guilt

One-way streets illustrate the nature of guilt. Even though normally when someone drives the wrong way on a one-way street they do it accidentally, they are still guilty of breaking the law. It’s against the law to drive the wrong way on a one-way street. Even if the police do not see it happen and do not issue a ticket, the wrong-way driver is nevertheless guilty of breaking the law.

That is because cities have authority to make traffic laws, and once they do, drivers are responsible to follow them. Every moment someone drives in the wrong direction on a one-way street he or she is guilty and liable to punishment. Moreover, their guilt persists. One month later they can get a ticket in the mail because a street camera recorded their law-breaking.

God is the ultimate lawgiver

So, guilt comes from breaking a law enacted by someone or something that has the moral right to enact laws and punish lawbreakers. In this way, every human has incurred guilt in the sight of God. God created and sustains all things and people. Thus he owns and rules over them. Therefore he has the right to enact laws we are responsible to obey. He is our God whether we acknowledge him or not. He gives us life, breath, water, food, and a beautiful world to live in.

For our good and his glory, he has established good and just laws we are commanded to obey. These laws are fair and right and promote human flourishing. For example, God commands that you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not lie, you shall not covet, you shall not love money, you shall not worship another God, you shall not commit sexual immorality, you shall honor your father and your mother, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

The objectivity of guilt

If we break any of these life-giving commands even once, we incur guilt as a lawbreaker in the sight of God, the righteous Lawgiver. When we live in an ongoing state of breaking God’s laws, we are like someone driving the wrong way on a one-way street for mile after mile, refusing to turn around or turn off the road, and endangering those around us.

Guilt is not just a subjective feeling. Guilt is an objective condition before a righteous Lawgiver. We may or may not feel guilty, but we all are objectively guilty of breaking God’s righteous laws.

How your guilt can be removed

The Bible teaches there is only one way to remove our guilt before our righteous Judge. We must put our faith in a Savior graciously provided by God. This Savior perfectly kept God’s laws and had no guilt. But then he was crucified for human sin. He took our guilt. His substitutionary death made it possible for us to be forgiven of our guilt. This Savior is Jesus Christ, God’s only Son.

The Bible says, “He has reconciled you by his physical body through his death, to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him” (Colossians 1:22 CSB).

He alone can remove the guilt of your sin. He alone has atoned for human guilt, the righteous for the unrighteous. He becomes your Savior when you put sincere faith in him and follow him as your Savior and Lord.

The Bible says, “God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:16 CSB)

Posted on

Are People Thinking About God?

It is interesting what people say when I ask about their faith. Last week on the sidewalk I asked a 30-something man who paused and took a pamphlet from me, “Do you believe in God?”

He responded, “Half the time.”

That means he is thinking about God. Most people do, even though they don’t talk about it or go to church. They are thinking about ultimate reality. Or they are thinking about God despite their best efforts not to think about him.

Either way, you can help them. You can ask others, “Do you ever think about spiritual things?” You can bear witness to the resurrection, simply saying, “God raised Jesus from the dead. In a world of death and evil, the only hope is the Son of God.”

Posted on

The True Gravity of Sinning Against God

Recently I heard a man1 tell a story of how he as a kid in fourth grade had wronged his grandfather. Let’s give this man the name Bob. A friend came over to Bob’s house, and Bob invited him to join him on his daily errand of feeding his grandfather’s pony. Together they went to his grandfather’s nearby farm.

As Bob took care of the pony, his friend noticed four cases of canning jars. His friend suggested they break them. For some reason, Bob agreed to it, and they broke all the jars.

As Bob the adult told this story, he explained that he had no reason to go along with breaking the jars, because he loved his grandfather. He went to church with him every week. He and his family lived in a house built on his grandfather’s farm.

Sadly, Bob’s boyhood friend did not stop with breaking the canning jars. He found cases of light bulbs and suggested breaking those. After they did, they went on breaking glass. They found storm windows for the house and broke them all. They looked around for more glass to break and came upon his grandfather’s truck. Each window they shattered. Then the windows of the barn, all except for one window where the pony was kept.

Finally Bob’s “friend” left, and he walked home petrified at what he had done. He did not sleep that night. For three days he heard nothing about their crimes. Then he came home from school and found his grandfather’s car in the driveway.

“Did you break the windows out of the barn?” his grandfather asked. He suspected Bob had done it because the only window left unbroken was by the pony. Bob admitted it, but did not bring up breaking anything else.

The next day, when he returned home from school, his grandfather’s car was again in the driveway. “Did you break all the canning jars and light bulbs and storm windows?” his grandfather asked. Bob admitted doing those things but did not bring up other wrongdoing.

The next day, when he returned home from school his grandfather’s car was again in the driveway. “Did you break the truck windows?” his grandfather asked, his voice raised in anger. Bob said yes. “Someone’s got to pay for this,” his grandfather said, to teach Bob a lesson. “Do you have any money?” Bob had $5, and he went and got his money and brought it to his grandfather.

Breaking holy things

When I heard Bob tell this story, I could only cringe at the wrongness—the evil—of what he had done to his grandfather. Now as an adult, “Bob” said the same thing.

How does hearing this story affect you? Beyond its lessons for human relations, it gives us a figurative glimpse of how we should feel about sinning against God’s commandments. When we transgress a command from God, he feels as the grandfather did. We have violated his holiness.

Breaking even one of God’s commandments is more wrong, more unthinkable than we comprehend. We might think we have “just” broken one commandment, but that is like saying you only broke one windshield of the truck—only it is infinitely worse than even that. The perfection of God’s holiness makes breaking even one of his commandments an infinitely serious evil. Each one of us over our lifetimes has broken God’s commands thousands of times, in deeds far more evil than the breaking of a few thousand dollars of a kindhearted grandfather’s glass. Our guilt is beyond human comprehension. The shards of shattered glass can only be undone through Jesus.

  1. I heard this story while evaluating a preacher’s sermons and theology. I disagree with him on significant things, which is why I have not included his name.

Posted on

The Enduring Danger of the World

The Enduring Danger of the World

19-year-old Grant Williams lived in New York and owned a pet reptile, a 44-pound python. He was preparing to feed the 13-foot snake as he had done many times before. He had brought home a live chicken in a box. He removed the lid from the box, and the python, a constrictor, in a flash wrapped itself around its victim. But the surprise victim was Williams himself. A neighbor found him in the hallway of their apartment building, bleeding, with the python wrapped around him. Rescue workers were called, and they were able to pry him loose. But it was too late for Williams, who died an hour later.

There is no such thing as a safe python.

Demas falls away

Similarly, the fallen world is never safe.

We learn something important about the spiritual dangers of the world from the story of a fellow worker to the apostle Paul named Demas.

We first hear of Demas when Paul was imprisoned in Rome and wrote letters to various churches and friends. The short letter to Philemon included in the New Testament includes these final words: “Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends greetings to you, and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers” (Philemon 1:23–24).

So, in approximately 62 A.D. the apostle calls Demas a fellow worker. He is one of four key workers mentioned by name, so he has history with Paul, and he was probably not a new believer. He had maturity and correct knowledge, having heard the apostle himself teaching others for a long time. He knew Christian doctrine, and he had seen the power of the Holy Spirit at work many times, healing the sick, casting out demons, working miracles.

Paul writes in another letter, this one to the church in Colossae, during the same imprisonment: “Luke the beloved physician greets you, as does Demas” (Colossians 4:14). So, Demas was well known by everyone in the Colossian church. He had many brothers and sisters in Christ, many friends to whom he sends greetings. He is not a lonely man.

Even so, the third and final time that Demas makes his way into a letter by the apostle Paul, things have changed. Approximately seven years after the first two letters, Paul is in prison again, and this time it appears certain to him that he will not be released, as happened in his last imprisonment, but will soon die as a martyr. He writes his trusted protégé Timothy: “Do your best to come to me soon. For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica” (2 Timothy 4:9–10).

Paul’s trusted assistant had deserted him. And Paul tells why Demas deserted him: Demas was “in love with this present world.” What happened? What changed? We do not know, but there are lessons for us.

Lessons for today

The world will never stop trying to make a comeback in your heart.

How deceptive is the allure of the world. It can lead us to desert Christian brothers and sisters, friends, and the church. Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 silver coins. Demas deserted Paul for some fleeting pleasure in Thessalonica.

The allure of the world can derail even those who are leaders and workers in gospel and church work. Demas had worked with Paul in gospel proclamation and church planting for years. He knew the gospel. He knew the Scriptures. He knew one of the most godly men in history in the apostle Paul. But somehow the world still appealed to him.

That is why we cannot open the door in the slightest to the world, for once its foot gets in the door, its deceptive power can work on us, even if we have successfully kept the world at a distance for a long time.

This is why Jesus said, “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:13–14 ESV).

The allure of the world deceives people to think the world is preferable to the ministry, preferable to Christian leaders. The fallen world will pass away; your godly treasures will remain forever.

We always have a choice between God and the world, between the church and the world, between God’s work and Satan’s world. Demas had a choice, and he chose wrong.

Paul does not say that Demas deserted him because of the hardships and sacrifices of God’s work but because of his love of the world. That is the captivating power of choosing to follow evil pleasure. The battle is won or lost in the heart; we must not make the initial choice to follow sinful pleasure, greed, and pride. Once you start down that road, you may never come back.

It is never safe to resume loving the world. No matter what you have done well in the past, it can all be lost before you finish the race, through a reawakened love of the world. You must remain dead to the world till the day you die.

For flirting with the world is like kissing a coiled, quiet python.

Posted on

How to Overcome the World: 4 Biblical Ways to Break Free from Its Pull

overcome the world

How do rocket scientists get a one-million-pound rocket off the launch pad and into earth orbit?

They give that rocket engines with a greater thrust than its weight. “If a rocket weighs one million pounds on the pad, it must produce more than one million pounds of thrust to lift off. Most launch vehicles produce about 1.2 to 1.5 times their weight at liftoff.”1

For example, the Saturn V rocket that launched Apollo 11 to go to the moon had a liftoff thrust of approximately 7.6 million pounds.2

Just as a rocket needs tremendous power to overcome the enormous pull of gravity, so the Christian needs supernatural grace from God to overcome the attractions of our fallen world.

Thankfully, God equips his people to overcome the world, just as Jesus overcame the world. Though we have seen in previous posts how the power of darkness rules the world, so that the world corrupts, defiles, tempts, and deceives those who follow it, nevertheless God has given us more than adequate power to overcome it.

Scripture says we overcome in these four ways:

We must hate our life in this world

Jesus said, “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (John 12:25 ESV).

Notice that verse does not say we are to hate our life; rather, it says we are to hate our life in this world. Instead of our delighting in the Satan-influenced, darkness-choreographed elements of our fallen world and licking up as much of its sinful pleasures as we think we can get away with, Jesus says the fallen world should disgust us.

We should yearn to get away from all the darkness and corruption. We should not welcome the darkness Hollywood dishes up. We will not eat garbage off its plates. Or from the plates of social media, publishers, podcasters, or godless politicians.

We must die to this world

There is spiritual power in choosing to take up your cross as Jesus did and die to the fallen world and all the pleasures it offers.

The apostle Paul sets an example for us, writing, “Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14 ESV).

The NLT translation of this verse is helpful: “As for me, may I never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in this world has been crucified, and the world’s interest in me has also died.”

Dying to this world is a choice enacted with words. Say out loud: “I am dead to this fallen world” and mean it. Say it as often as you need to. Say it whenever you are tempted. “I am dead to greed.” “I am dead to envy.” “I am dead to selfish ambition and the vain approval of men.” “I am dead to lust.” I am dead to idols, money, worldly power and success.

Moreover, say it in Jesus’ name and lay claim on the power of his death on the cross. For example, “I am dead to rebellion against God’s commands, in the name of Jesus and through my union with him in his death on the cross. Amen”

We must renew our mind

Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.”

Satan continually tries to conform people to his false ideas, and he is enormously successful. It takes a determined effort and work by us to overcome the fallen belief systems of the world. This is why we must read the Bible daily, hear Bible teaching weekly, and memorize Scripture regularly.

Your mind is where the war against the world is won or lost, and God’s Word is the ultimate weapon. If you are not renewing your mind in the Word, the world is directing your beliefs, values, and moral decisions in ruinous ways.

So, decide today to build new disciplines for regular immersion in God’s holy words. Set a place and time to read the Bible daily. Have a scheduled, weekly, unbreakable appointment to be in church to hear Bible teaching. Guard that commitment from competing attractions!

We must cling to Jesus and be his true disciples

Jesus said, “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

He is the only one who can say that without reservation. He is the secret to overcoming the darkness of our world. The Son of God. The Holy One. Who offered himself to die and then overcame death. Who rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, transcending the world. He is your way out of this inferno of evil. He overcame the world, and through your committed faith in him and submission to his Lordship he will give you victory as well and bring you to his kingdom of light and truth, purity and joy, life and resurrection, righteousness and peace and love.

All that and more is coming! The day is coming when the angels will proclaim, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever” (Revelation 11:15). Amen!

So, you can break free from the pull of the world! But you cannot expect to do it apart from the enormous spiritual thrust provided by God’s grace.

Hate your life in this fallen world.

Die to this world.

Renew your mind.

Cling to Jesus and be his true disciple.

And you will be free.

—–

  1. ChatGPT
  2. ChatGPT
Posted on

Worldliness or Holiness: Which Direction Are You Going?

pursuing holiness

God’s holiness acts like the Continental Divide, sending people in opposite spiritual directions. Those who love the fallen world recoil from holiness, while those transformed by Christ hunger for purity and righteousness. Scripture teaches that without holiness no one will see the Lord, and God provides both the power and the motivation for believers to grow in holiness through repentance, separation from worldly corruption, and the fear of God.

God says, “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16).

The Continental Divide

God’s holiness and his call for us to be holy as he is holy resembles the Continental Divide, which sends people one direction or the other. The Continental Divide is an imaginary line running the length of the Rocky Mountains in America. Precipitation and melting snow that occurs west of the Divide flows toward the Pacific Ocean or the Gulf of California. What occurs east of the Divide drains toward the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, or the Arctic Ocean.

Similarly, those who love the fallen world will recoil from the holiness of God and balk at personal holiness. The word holiness will have negative connotations for them, and they will avoid it.

Conversely, those who love God and his perfect purity will recoil from the corruption of the fallen world, recognize the goodness of holiness, and yearn for it.

The direction of people’s reaction speaks volumes about whether they can have any assurance of entering the kingdom of heaven. The Bible says, “Without holiness no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14 NIV).

How you can pursue holiness

Prior to conversion, few people pursue holiness. In fact, most people would prefer to do just about anything than be holy.

But thank God, he has provided a way to change our nature. He says we can be born again through faith in Jesus Christ (see John 3:1–21). When we put our faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins and begin to follow him as a disciple, he changes our appetites by giving us the Holy Spirit to live within.

Holiness is an acquired taste, but once God gives it to you through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, it is deeply satisfying, like eating food that is truly good.

How to grow in holiness

If you are a Christian who is committed to following Jesus as a true disciple, Scripture tells you two crucial steps to grow in holiness: “Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:1 ESV).

Cleanse yourself

First, this verse says we must “cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit.” That is why talking about holiness is relevant to this series about the fallen world, for it is the world and our love for the fallen world that defiles us.

So, ask yourself, what sinful things in the world do I enjoy?

Perhaps you love movies laced with lust-producing sexual scenes and nudity, or full of debasing profanity, or glorifying violence. Cleanse yourself from these movies. Stop watching them.

Perhaps you enjoy going to clubs that inspire only the lusts of the flesh. Cleanse yourself from them. Stop going.

Perhaps your best friends get together primarily to do drugs and drink to excess, or to talk incessantly about ungodly things. It is time to make new Christian friends and stop hanging out with the old crowd.

It is through activities of the fallen world that Satan influences you, deceives you, tempts you to sin. This is how he tries to drive you away from God, to avoid church and the Bible and Christians.

Develop the fear of God

Second, it is the proper fear or reverence of God that motivates us to pursue holiness. The Scripture above speaks of “bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:1). Proverbs 16:6 says, “By the fear of the LORD one turns away from evil.”

Some evil aspects of the world get such a hold in the human heart that the only thing that can give a person the will power to quit them is the fear that God will punish them if they continue. And the truth is, God will sooner or later discipline or punish his children to cleanse them of evil! There is ample reason to fear the Holy God.

The Father’s discipline

Hebrews 12:6–11 says, “The Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

“Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”

Remember

Remember why humans generally avoid the holy: If we follow the fallen world we are being influenced by Satan, who hates the holiness of God. Satan seeks to destroy your life. Learning to love what is holy and the holy God who makes you holy is essential for you to steer clear of Satan and have abundant life.

Jesus said, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

Choose holiness, hate worldliness, and enjoy abundant life forever!

Posted on

Unstained by the World

pursuing holiness

I had just parked my car on a Chicago side street and had not yet gotten out. It was late afternoon on a cold winter day. Across the street a man wearing one-piece, dark-yellow, thermal overalls, the kind worn by construction workers in cold weather, got out of his car. As he grabbed stuff out of the car and walked up to his house, I noticed a prominent dark stain in the seat and inside thighs of his yellow overalls. I concluded he must have been working at a construction site with no portable toilets on a task he could not interrupt without risking his job. He thought he could hold it but failed.

Embarrassing, uncomfortable. What do you guess was the first thing he did when he got in the house?

Something foul

No stain is pleasant, and some are worse than others. This was about as bad as it gets. Actually, no, there is a stain much worse. The Bible says, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (James 1:27 ESV).

The fallen world in which we live can stain the soul. Have you ever watched a movie that stained your soul? The credits roll, you turn the movie off or walk out of the theater, and you feel you have experienced something foul, something filthy. You wished you could erase the stain, but no, the stain remained. If only it could be shed as easily as soiled construction overalls.

A stained world

You can read a book or have a conversation with someone and feel stained by the profane, degraded view of life expressed in profane words.

This fallen world makes it possible for you to sin in countless ways and afterward feel stained. Scripture provides a shopping list of worldly ways that stain the soul:

“They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them” (Romans 1:29-32 ESV).

A precious word fallen on hard times

That is just a short list of behaviors flourishing in our fallen world. Those who practice them are stained by evil, and Christians who are not careful can have the stain rub off on them if they follow these same worldly ways.

There is an important word used in the Bible for those who carefully avoid being stained by the world. The Bible uses this word to describe Jesus, who lived in this fallen world but never succumbed to its evil temptations and influences. It is a word that non-Christians have little use for and scarcely talk about, and even Christians are uncomfortable when the subject is raised. It is a word rarely used in book titles because it is likely to kill sales. Even many pastors are reluctant to use this word in a sermon, lest they give the wrong impression to visitors or repel immature and worldly believers.

God, on the other hand, is not shy about using this word to describe himself. In fact it is central to his identity. God says, “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16).