Friday, September 24, 2010

Challenge: Holiness

…because it is written, "YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY." 1 Peter 1:16 (NASB)

I love learning.  I love it when the Holy Spirit stirs my heart and mind with illumination from the Bible or from life.  I hunger to know more and more.

But, there is a danger.

All too often the things I learn just remain head knowledge.  All to often the practical fleshing out of those things in daily life is neglected.  I know great things.  But when what I know far exceeds what I live, there is a problem.

Doug is reading a book entitled Holiness by J. C. Ryle, a 19th century English evangelist.  As he read this morning, he shared several quotes that greatly hammered home this thought.  The most simply profound thought was this:

“The great question is not what you think, and what you feel, but what you do.”

Do I “do” the holiness that I think?  Do I live out the many things I know?  Too often the answer is no. 

My challenge is to make that shift more successfully every day.  I am not simply to think about holiness, I am to be holy. 

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