IF
YOU WOULD BE HOLY
As you journey in and into holiness you will be
horrified at your exceeding sinfulness.
It is then that this new view of sin will spur you on toward new
maturity levels of practical holiness.
A clear understanding of what you could be and should be will
leave you with a haunting dissatisfaction with what you are. All the while you become increasingly
satisfied with Jesus.
Have you ever accepted God's holy standard for your life? God has a standard for you and His standard
is holy. He purchased you with His
precious holy blood. His purpose for
you is that you present your person as a Spirit-consumed, vibrantly alive
sacrifice. He accepts you with
commitment, only as you are wholly holy.
By this I mean, He commits Himself and all that He is to you only as you
commit to Him with a willingness to be holy.
If you desire Holy God to commit Himself to you according to His mighty
Person and His glorious promises in Scripture, you cannot come to Him with only
a partial yielding. Only as you agree
to be holy does He deliver you into holiness.
Only as you are sanctified or separated by the Holy Spirit into holiness
can He justifiably commit His holy Self to you.
There will never be practical holiness in your life until you
conscientiously, time-consumingly, pragmatically and repentantly deal with the
old man of sin and his corrupt, inevitable sin manifestations.
The manifestations of sin are manifold. For the many Christians who feel they are
doing fine and who are hard to convince of their need of repentance I have
listed a few evidences of unholiness:
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Disobedience
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A complaining spirit
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Impatience
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A bragging spirit
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Dishonoring God
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A root of bitterness
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Love of money
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dishonoring God's day
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Sowing discord
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lack of respect for authority
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Ingratitude
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Hating God's men
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Idolatry
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Cunning devices
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Refusing to seek God's will
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Fear of man
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Evil-speech
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reading filthy literature
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Lust
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seeing dirty movies
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Impure meditations
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silence
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Intemperance
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no backbone
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Irresponsibility
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lack of convictions
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Laziness
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denying the infallibility of Bible
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Cheating
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lack of brotherly love
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Jealousy
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withholding help to needy, sick, etc.
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Prayerlessness
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greedy
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Robbing God of tithes/offerings
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gambling
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No servant's heart
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taking illegal drugs
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An unforgiving spirit
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unhealthy eating habits
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Failure to praise God
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smoking cigarettes
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Pride
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womanizing
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An untouchable spirit
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sacrilege
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Unholy ambitions
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ill-temper
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Not evangelizing
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revengeful
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Unpreparedness
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refusing the Lordship of Christ
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Critical spirit
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wanting your selfish way
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Adultery
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little thought to the return of Christ
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Homosexuality
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allowing satanic strongholds
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Drunkenness
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love for the world
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Over-indulgence
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yielding to peer pressure
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Gossip
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love for praise of men
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Procrastination
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lack of faith
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Witchcraft
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disbelief in God's promises
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Horoscopes
These are a few sins for inventory
purposes. Get into the Word of God for
further revelation of sin... which is the hindrance to holiness in our lives.
The common reaction to such an
enumerating of sin is an obnoxious, passive rationalizing, refusal to be
honest. If while quickly skimming
across the satanic garden of hell's flowers, your heart is arrested, it is
customary to say, "Who is perfect?
Anyway my sins are insignificant and don't hurt nothing or nobody
anyhow!"
No sin is small. No sin is harmless. Allow me to accent your need for holiness by
showing you something of the effect of sin in your life.
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Sin stops your spiritual growth.
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Sin steals your joy.
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Sin stagnates your creativity.
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Sin sacrifices your loved ones.
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Sin salutes Satan as your controller.
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Sin shames the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Sin sends lost people to hell.
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Sin seals your lips rendering you cowardly silent.
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Sin separates you from the fellowship of other Christians.
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Sin spoils your fellowship with the Lord Jesus
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Sin surrenders your influence.
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Sin side-steps God's will for your life.
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Sin sabotages your mind.
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Sin shuts off your supply line from God.
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Sin sours your spirit (makes you a sourpuss).
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Sin sickens your body (leaves you physically disabled).
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Sin soils your life and makes it ugly.
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Sin saturates your vocabulary (negative confessions & filth).
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Sin saddens your countenance.
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Sin stings your conscience and hardens your heart.
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Sin sells you into slavery.
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Sin silences your heart's song.
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Sin shuts your eyes to the effects of evil around you.
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Sin sentences you to an early death.
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Sin says you really love self more than you love Jesus.
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Sin shouts, "No, God! No, God! No, God! I will not be holy!!! I will not enjoy all
you have for me!".
If you would be holy what must you do
with your sin?
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You must see your sin as God sees your sin.
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You must openly acknowledge your sin.
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You must identify your specific sin areas.
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You must willfully choose against your sin.
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You must repent of and forsake your sins.
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You must ask for and accept God's forgiveness.
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You must take a stand against your sin.
When you dare deal with your sin according to
Scripture, the Lord forgives you, cleanses you, covers your sin with His blood,
puts your sin behind His back, he never again holds this sin against you. He releases you from the guilt of sin, and
He indwells you as a power over sin and a deterrent against sin. And oh, the blindness of God's provision for
our sanctification through the indwelling Christ.
The indwelling Christ energizes
in you with supernatural power; defeats Satan on the battleground of
your heart; generates new daily strength for oncoming temptation; provides for
you the mind of holiness; quickens your consciousness against sin; allows
moment by moment appropriation of the Holy Spirit; and is your only source of
holiness.
Maybe it will help you toward holiness
if I share with you that as long as you harbor sin, thus live sinfully, you are
helping Satan in his campaign against the Church.
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When you sin Satan sees you and is pleased.
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When you sin Satan sees you as a defeated foe.
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When you sin Satan sees you as his evil inroad into the lives of
friends, loved ones, etc.
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When you sin Satan sees you as a pawn whom he can easily obsess
with demons.
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When you sin Satan sees you as a plaything to torment and
disgrace.
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When you sin Satan sees you as a deterrent against the lost being
saved and against possible revival in the churches.
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When you is Satan sees you a fool and laughs at you.
The church is people. Unholy people make an unholy church. The unholy church is a reproach to our Holy
God and is powerless to change our godless society. Never before has the church been more needed and seldom has she
been so ineffective. Today's church is
backsliding into the final dark ages of human history.
In days like today profession is
inadequate. All our acting religiously,
feeling religiously, and talking religiously is stench from the dunghill of our
sinful decadence. Men claim holiness
but their verbiage is empty in light of their lifelessness. Show me a person who claims holiness but who
refuses to be salt and light and I will show you a disgrace to grace.
Holiness does not strut, for strutting
denotes haughtiness, but holiness does STAND and does SPEAK OUT. The very essence of salt is holiness. The very origin of light is holiness. The diaphragmatic and vocal apparatus behind
the gospel proclamation is holiness.
The church was infiltrated with paganism
when the Dark Ages swallowed up entire centuries. The church as infatuated with form criticism when Hitler raped
Europe, and the church was frozen with formalism when the Communists captured
Russia and martyred 40 million freedom-loving human beings.
Not even our deepest thinkers can
calculate the multiplied misery heaped upon the human race while the church
argued over incidentals, mused over the mundane, jockeyed for clerical
prestige, gloried in its gold, ran roughshod over its parishioners, brought
worldliness into its sanctuaries, made sacrilege of the sacraments, played
footsie with tyrants, committed adultery with the perverts of humanism, denied
the power and the glory of their Lord, and walked piously into the jaws of
judgment.
We must have revival, a revival of
holiness, something most believers live and die without ever seeing. We do not need a revival of activity which
is nothing more than empty headed dancing with the fool-hearted to the tune of
the devil's fiddle, while nations burn and the remnant face hungry lions to the
applause of self-condemned fools.