Holiness

It seems as if God is working on something in me. He is re-teaching me about holiness and righteousness, since I have become confused in my learning of this.

I grew up thinking that God forgives our sins, but we need to try our best not to sin. We need to in a way earn our holiness and achieve “perfection.” We can’t slip and fall if we’re really Christians, and maybe we just didn’t get it when we slip and fall again. That was a great stumbling block for me in my walk. I thought that my sins after being saved were worse than my sins before being saved, and that maybe I was never really saved because of what I did.

But that isn’t it. Even as Christians, we fall short when we do things on our own. Yesterday’s devotion was talking about how God makes us righteous and pure, and He does. He has made me pure, His “white rose,” and it has nothing to do with what I have done, but all to do with what He did on the cross. My view of myself has been so warped, and I am (slowly) learning how to love myself and see myself as God sees me.

But this holiness issue has two sides in my heart. And today God worked on how I view other people. I admit that there is a pride that was building up in my heart, and today God told me that it needs to come down. He doesn’t just make me holy and pure, but He makes others holy and pure. And just because some people have only recently become holy and pure doesn’t mean that they aren’t as holy and pure as those who have been made holy and pure for a longer time. God makes us all equal in Him, and we should not measure ourselves by the spirituality of another believer, or even those that do not believe.

The reason this has been so huge to me is because of my calling. I have felt God calling me to ministry for years, and because of that, I have been very careful of who I date or who I like, since I have to think of not only myself, but my future ministry. This person needs to be supportive and helpful to that ministry, or it is better than I am not with them. But it was getting to the point that I was comparing myself to people too much, seeing them as not good enough, and that is not what God wants from me. He wants me to love all of His children, and wait for the one He will bring to me. I should not be so worried about finding someone, because I’m not supposed to find someone. I’m supposed to wait on God.

I’ll admit, none of this is easy. I struggle with the second half even more than I struggled with the first half. But the best part is that I don’t have to do this on my own strength. God gives me the strength to do His will.