TITLE: The Quest To Be Holy By Ed Arrington 02/01/12 |
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By
Edward Arrington
(All scripture reference is taken from New King James Version)
When I was a young teenager in Jacksonville, Florida I became excited about the possibility of achieving a rare level of independence. I had asked my mother if I could go downtown on a bus, walk around and see the sights, buy a few things, eat a meal, and then go see a good movie. All of that took money, which I did not have, but mother said she would take care of it if I was willing to spend several hours busting up concrete blocks into little pieces. These were big, imposing, intimidating blocks of concrete; there must have been at least ten waiting for my valiant effort to raise that money. I started in the early morning swinging a pickaxe over and over again throughout the day, demolishing those blocks of stone. I stayed with it until the job was done.
Cracking those concrete blocks is symbolic of the effort it takes for Christians to be holy. God’s people must work hard to be pure because our Lord grants no allowance for an unholy life. The Bible states emphatically in Leviticus 19:2, ‘You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.’
The quest to be holy must begin immediately upon acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Therefore, paramount attention must be directed to Philippians 2:12 – ‘work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.’
An excellent method for Christians to ‘work out salvation’ is to become intimately acquainted with the God who provides it. Read His Word, consistently. Joshua 1:8 expresses clearly, ‘This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night…..’
Statistical research polls, including the Barna Group, generally indicate that thirty-five percent of born-again Christians do not read the Bible at all, and among those who say they read the Bible, the vast majority only read it during the one hour they attend church each Sunday morning. I can vouch for the accuracy of those statements. During my boyhood years, our family went to church all the time, but we never read the Bible in the home. Therefore, when I entered the young adult phase of my life I began the journey biblically illiterate. There was no way for me to practice ‘being holy’, because I was ignorant of God’s sacred instruction that pointed the way. It took ten years and almost a shattered marriage to decide that if I had time to read secular magazines, books, and newspapers, most of them saturated with the filth of the world, then I ought to have time for the one pure book on earth, God’s holy word, the Bible. I did make time for the world’s ‘best-seller’ and fell in deep love with scripture.
I challenge you! Start reading the Bible today, every day, for the rest of your life. Your desire for holiness will not fail. Isaiah 55:11 declares ‘so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish that what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.’
Ready? Get Set! Go! Read! God is waiting to share His heart and to make you divinely successful in the quest to be holy.
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