BE YE HOLY PT. 2

Sorry for dragging my feet on this post. This week has been really busy and it's not over yet. My middle child's birthday is Sunday and I wanted to throw him a party tonight since we'll be doing a neighborhood Halloween party and trick-or-treating after that on Sunday. The party was great. We just had one other family come over for pizza and cake and then treated the kids to a dip in our hot tub. Unfortunately the birthday boy didn't want to get in because it was too hot. Maybe he'll learn how wonderful a soak in the hot tub can be someday.

Anyway, I've been thinking a lot about the topic of holiness lately. As I said before, I picked up Sproul's Holiness of God again and started looking through it. A couple days ago I read the one of the last chapters that talks about personal holiness. What surprised me was it was like I had never read the chapter before. That's so annoying. I know I read the book a couple years back but the material was as fresh and convicting as if I'd never laid eyes on it. I think one of the reasons for that is I still need to learn the lessons this chapter contains. What does it mean to be holy? According to Sproul, the dictionary and my concordance the word holy means several things:

sacred
set apart
consecrated
pure

How do we live this way? Sproul brings up Romans 12:1-2 which calls the Christian to live a set apart, sacrificial life to God; we are not to be conformed to this world. How do you not conform? One point that is made on one of the Basement Tapes (put out by the Highland Study Center) is to try to imagine aliens coming to earth and observing your life and family compared to the average unbelievers life and family. Would they see any difference? I think that's a good point. It certainly makes me think about the kind of activities we participate in. However, I always seem to get stuck right there at that point. It's like a mentally put a period right after the word "world" in Romans 12:2. That is exactly Sproul's point as well. I'll let him make the point since it's much more powerful coming from his pen --

"It is a tragedy that the matter of nonconformity has been treated by Christians at a shallow level. The simplistic way of being nonconforming is to see what is in style in our culture and then do the opposite. A superficial style of nonconformity is the classical pharisaical trap. The call of nonconformity is a call to a deeper level of righteousness that goes beyond externals. We still want to make the kingdom a matter of eating and drinking. Anyone can avoid dancing or going to movies. These require no great effort of moral courage. What is difficult is to control the tongue, to act with integrity, to show forth the fruit of the Spirit. Anyone can be a nonconformist for nonconformity's sake. Again I want to emphasize that this is a cheap piety. What we are ultimately called to is more than nonconformity; we are called to transformation.

This hit me hard again. I am continually repenting for looking on the outside only and not on the heart. When I meet someone or read their blog (I'm embarrassed to say) or observe a friend's lifestyle my mind has a tendency to make immediate judgments about externals. What are they wearing, do they watch TV, what shows do they watch, do they homeschool, are they Reformed, is their hair long, etc., etc., etc. This is a very frustrating and ungodly habit to have. Of course our external obedience matters. Faith without works is dead. But, as Sproul says, if we have a Pharasaical mindset and overemphasize the minors while neglecting the weightier issues such as justice, mercy, love, etc., we are guilty of having a cheap piety. So what are we called to in our quest for holiness? That is in the second part of Romans 12:2 and is called transformation. More on that tomorrow.

Blessings