A Lifetime Pursuit - Sophia Akin

I have been sitting on the couch upstairs of Elk Run for a while now trying to figure out what to write about - not because I can’t think of anything, but because I have already learned so much in these short, few months.

Specifically, the Lord has been teaching me a lot about holiness. Rather, His holiness and my lack thereof. Coming into the fellowship, I had an incredibly shallow view of both God’s holiness and my own. I had the false belief that I was a lot more holy than I was and that God was a lot less holy than He is. Prideful, I know. As a fellowship, we’re reading The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges, and the Lord has graciously been correcting this false belief of mine. While I’ll be learning what it means to be holy for the rest of my life, here is just a little snippet of what the Lord has taught me thus far: 

1 Peter 1:15-16 says, “But as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’” To be holy means to be set apart from sin and to God - it means to be conformed to the image of Christ. To understand what it means to be holy, we must look to Jesus, who in every respect was tempted like we are, yet without sin. 

In my false view of holiness, I had the idea that holiness had only to do with my mere actions - that if I appeared to be obedient and good to others, then I was living holy. My holiness was based not on conformity to the character of God but on the approval of man. Sounds ironic, doesn’t it? However, it was not just Christ’s mere actions that were holy. Christ’s every thought, every word, every motive, and every action were holy. 

Not only did Christ never sin, but He hates sin. The truth is, before the fellowship, I hated the way sin made me look to others, but I did not hate sin. I hated the way sin made me feel, but I did not hate sin. I was faced with the question: do I hate my sin because it makes me look and feel bad, or do I hate my sin because it grieves the heart of God? To be holy, I must hate sin as God hates sin. I must constantly be reminded that my own sin put Jesus Christ on the cross, that my own sin grieves the heart of God - my pride, my impatience, my bitterness, my anxiousness, my doubt in our holy and sovereign God, and my lack of hatred of sin. All my shortcomings put Him there. 

We see in Scripture that there are two types of holiness: holy standing and holy living. 1 Corinthians 1:30 says, “And because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption”. Jesus is far more than just an example of holiness for us. He was not just a man of good morals and teachings that we should seek advice from when we are at our wit’s end. Jesus Christ, who knew no sin, became sin for us - He is our holiness. He lived the perfect life we could not live, died the death we deserve, and resurrected, defeating sin and death for all eternity so that we who have placed our faith in Him may stand holy before the Lord. His righteousness has become our own. That is holy standing. Holy living, on the other hand, is something we must strive after. It is something that takes work. While I have been set free from the reign of sin, I still have responsibility over my choices. With the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, I have the choice to choose sin or to choose righteousness. I must choose to actively fight against my sin and pursue holiness - not just for this year of refinement, but for all the days of my life.