Devotionals

The Pursuit of Holiness

by Lenardo Youmans
11/02/22
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We live in a society where fads quickly surface and tend to dominate the culture.  Gone are the days when morals and traditional values ruled the culture and set the benchmark for life.  What used to be considered abominable and detestable is now considered normal and acceptable.  Things that the Bible deems as unclean or unholy have been adopted by society as the new normal.  The wickedness being perpetuated in the world today is at a level that our generation has never witnessed.  Vivid reminders of society’s degradation are everywhere you turn.  Once upon a time, it was easy to ascertain a believer from a non-believer.  Now, it is somewhat difficult to distinguish people who live for God from those who don’t.  Those who claim to be Christians can often be seen behaving like those who are not saved and have no interest in living the “saved” life. 

“For I am the Lord that bringeth you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.”

—Leviticus 11:45

Everyone that chooses to follow Christ should make a conscious effort to forsake everything that is not like Him.  The Bible says, “…Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity” (2 Timothy 2:19).  My friend, as believers and followers of Christ, we must forsake the ways, systems, and temptations of the world and become full-time members of the Lord’s system (His way of doing things).  We cannot hold onto or try to partake in worldly things while serving Jesus Christ.  We must abandon worldly trends and norms and adopt the culture of God’s kingdom.  Giving your life to Christ entails letting go of secular mindsets, thought patterns, practices, and habits.  When God brought His people (the Israelites) out of Egypt, He intended for them to abandon the principles, practices, and cultural habits that they had picked up in Egypt.  He did not want them to take those ideals into the Promised Land.  He mandated that they become holy. 

What exactly does it mean to be holy?  The Hebrew word for holy is qadosh, which means to be saintly or morally sacred.  Something or someone holy is “set apart” or “separated” for a particular purpose.  When God demanded that His people be holy like Him, He was requiring them to be set apart for His pleasure.  The Israelites were held captive in bondage and cried out to God to save them.  He answered their call and set them free.  As His people, He expected them to be like Him.  He gave them the laws and commandments in the Old Testament to reveal His nature unto them.  The purpose of the law was not to make their lives burdensome or miserable but to make them aware of how God expects His people to live.  Over the course of being in Egypt for 400-plus years, the Israelites got comfortable with the ways of the Egyptians and embraced that way of living.  They picked up pagan practices, wicked ways, unrighteousness, and immorality.  In our day this would be equivalent to them adopting the current worldly trends such as smoking, drinking, drug use, listening to secular music, fornication, clubbing, adultery, incest, partying, murder, robbery, pornography, homosexuality, cursing, and gambling.  However, when God delivered them, they could not bring the influences of Egypt into Canaan or adopt the evil practices of the Canaanites, who they were to drive out of the Promised Land.

“According to the doings of the land of Egypt, where you dwelt, you shall not do; and according to the doings of the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you, you shall not do; nor shall you walk in their ordinances.  You shall observe My judgments and keep My ordinances, to walk in them: I am the Lord your God.  You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, which if a man does, he shall live by them: I am the Lord.”

—Leviticus 18:3-5 (NKJV)

God demands that His people be different from others.  God’s statutes and commandments addressed all the wicked things that existed in Egypt (the world) when He rescued His people.  God had to inform Israel that Egypt’s way of living was contrary to the righteousness that His people ought to embody.  Under the new covenant that we have through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, God expects us to live a life that is not polluted by the world.  For the Israelites, Egypt represented the world or a condition of sinfulness.  God bringing them out of Egypt is equivalent to a person today giving their life to Jesus Christ and turning away from a sinful lifestyle.  When you become a Christian and commit to following Jesus, the Lord expects you to walk away from worldly practices and subscribe to His brand of living.  In Galatians 5:1 Paul tells the church: “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”  If you are a true servant of Jesus Christ, then you are not to continue partaking in unholy things after becoming saved.  You have a responsibility of walking the walk in addition to talking the talk. 

Sadly, a lot of people miss the mark in that they think they can just claim to be a Christian and live a lifestyle consisting of things that do not please God.  When God told the Israelites, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain” (Exodus 20:7), He was saying that you cannot claim to be my people without living the lifestyle that indicates you are mine.  If you believe that you are a child of God, then your life should reflect it.  Notice that God says He will not hold a person guiltless if they exhibit such behavior. 

One of my late mother’s favorite phrases was, “Live the life that you testify about!”  Many people say they know God, but they don’t act like it.  Their actions speak a different story than their mouth does.  There is no mixture in God’s kingdom.  You cannot mix clean with unclean, righteous with unrighteous, or holy with unholy.  Jesus put this in a nutshell when He said, “…Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:16).  Lukewarm is indicative of something hot being mixed with something cold.  In the Lord’s eyes, you are either hot or cold.  Either you are His or not.  He says that if you’re lukewarm (straddling the fence or in a gray area), He will spit you out (reject you).  He does not accept mixtures! You are either fully saved or not.  You are wholly Christian, or you are not.  Sometimes people who claim to be Christian but are not living the lifestyle of one, try to make excuses for their lifestyle by saying they are a work in progress and that God knows their heart.  A heart that truly knows God should not be sinning willfully or committing unholy acts.  When I say “sinning willfully” I am referring to continuing to do things that are wrong when you clearly know that they are wrong.  The Bible mentions that no man can serve two masters (Matthew 6:24).  You cannot serve God and eat from the devil’s buffet at the same time.  The devil knows that he’s going to hell, and he wants to deceive as many people as he can and take them to hell with him.  He even had the audacity to try to deceive Jesus into worshipping him (Matthew 4:1-11).  He tried to get Jesus to compromise and do unholy things.  The devil knows that if he can get you to participate in behavior that is contrary to God’s will, he will cause you to forfeit your inheritance as a child of God.  That is what happened to him.  He and one-third of the angels in heaven decided to rebel against God, and they lost their status in God’s kingdom.  Unfortunately, many people today are squandering what God has in store for them because they are giving in to the cultural ideals of the world instead of fully committing to the ways of God.  My friend, it pays to live holy.    

What exactly is holiness?  Many people have a misconstrued idea about what holiness is.  It is not merely something that is an external display of religious characteristics.  True holiness is internal.  It’s when the nature of God resides in you.  Your actions are dictated and governed by the Holy Spirit.  Holiness is when you are not contaminated by the things of the world, and you don’t allow outward influences to penetrate your being and affect the way you live.  In essence, your inward man (soul) is not polluted by the world and your lifestyle is upright before God.  The righteousness inside you transforms you to the core, creating a glowing inner beauty that is amplified to the max and eventually explodes and radiates out of you.  At that point, what’s inside you shows up on the outside; and people will know that you are different from the world.

Holiness is an ongoing process and endless pursuit that begins when you come to know Jesus.  Once you come to know the Lord, you must die to the world, the flesh, and self.  Jesus said, “Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Mark 8:34).  In the very next verse, Jesus states that if you want to experience a good life on earth and enter the Kingdom when your time on earth is over, then you must die to the things of the world and live a holy life.  When He died on the cross, He was dying to the flesh and the world.  He was raised from the dead after three days by the power of the Holy Spirit.  When you die to the ways and things of this world, you are taking up your cross and laying your life down as Christ did.  When He sacrificed His life, He was quickened and glorified by the Holy Spirit.  The same happens when we follow suit and lay our lives down in pursuit of holiness.  In addition to choosing godliness over worldliness, you are also opening yourself for the Holy Spirit to work in you and through you.  The Spirit quickens us and enables us to live in this corrupt, fallen world as Jesus lived in it—graceful and powerful without falling victim to the world’s temptations

“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

—Galatians 2:20

When you are pursuing holiness, it is no longer you that is living; but it is Christ that lives through you. 

Holiness is the secret ingredient that allows you to experience the fullness of God, His power, and the manifestation of His glory in your life.     

There are many self-professing Christians who don’t experience the manifestation of God’s glory and power in their lives because their relationship with Him is watered down with worldliness.  They claim to know the Lord, but they are still broke, sick, depressed, frustrated, and defeated.  Friend, that’s not the type of life that the Lord promised us.  He promised the Israelites great blessings (a land flowing with milk and honey) if they would commit to holiness after being set free from Egypt.  Jesus promised us believers “life and life more abundantly” (John 10:10) through Him.  For His promises to become reality in your life, you must pursue holiness.   A multitude of Israelites that came out of Egypt failed to experience the promises of God because they did not pursue holiness, and they died as a result.  They failed to let the nature of God drive out the Egyptian characteristics that were in them.  My dear brother/sister, there’s nothing in this world worth losing your soul for.  Just say yes to Jesus and His ways and no to the ways of the world.  It’s time for you to see His promises manifest in your life, but this will only happen when you look for holiness.