The Heart Of A Man

How Holy Are You?

As a follow-up to my last post, I've been reading another of Nancy Leigh DeMoss' books. It is called, "Holiness: the Heart God Purifies". It's another great one that I would highly recommend...and I'm only in the second chapter.

God seems to have a way of preparing our hearts for what He is about to show us. Lately He has been, through various avenues, making it clear that I am a selfish and lazy person. I've been very resistant to that idea.

If you had asked me a week or two ago, or any time in the past for that matter, "How holy are you?" I probably would have answered somewhere in the range of 50-70%, and most of that time I would probably have been thinking in my mind, "but it's actually a little higher than that."

I would have been dead wrong.

What God is opening my eyes to is the fact that the thing about holiness is I either am, or I am not. 100% or 0%. There is no in-between.

If I do anything that I even think might not be honoring God, guess what...0%. If I don't do something that I know God wants me to do, no matter how small...0%. If I allow a thought to linger that does not line up with the mind of Christ...0%. You get the picture.

So, by being satisfied with my perceived 70% on average, I've actually been living at 0%. As the Bible says, "The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?"

The good news is that it is possible to live at 100%. Thankfully, it is only by the grace of God that we can. When we confess our sin and repent fully from it He will restore our holiness with the holiness of Christ. (Note: I am not saying that when we are at 0% we are unsaved and at 100% we are saved, but that at 0% we are out of fellowship and communion with our Holy God.) As believers we have the righteousness of Christ, but we must choose to walk in it to experience the Christian life as God desires us to.

I know I will not, on this side of heaven, live continuously at 100% holy. However, now that I recognize my sinful state, at least I have an opportunity to deal with my sin and receive the mercy that God so graciously gives to those who turn from their sin and seek His face.

Labels: grace, holiness, Nancy Leigh DeMoss, repentance, sin

posted by David @ 12:30 PM