“The one thing that matters is whether a man will accept the God Who will make him holy. At all costs a man must be rightly related to God.
The following are excerpts from “Devotions for MORNING and EVENING with Oswald Chambers” (Sept. 1)
"The preaching of the gospel awakens an intense resentment because it must reveal that I am unholy; but it also awakens an intense craving. God has one destined end for mankind, viz., holiness. His one aim is the production of saints. God is not an eternal blessing-machine for men; He did not come to save men out of pity: He came to save men because He had created them to be holy. The Atonement means that God can put me back into perfect union with Himself, without a shadow between, through the Death of Jesus Christ.
Never tolerate through sympathy with yourself or with others any practice that is not in keeping with a holy God. Holiness means unsullied walking with the feet, unsullied talking with the tongue, unsullied thinking with the mind—every detail of the life under the scrutiny of God. Holiness is not only what God gives me, but what I manifest that God has given me." (pg. 506)
(Sept. 8) “The conflict is along the line of turning our natural life into a spiritual life, and this is never done easily, nor does God intend it to be done easily. It is done only by a series of moral choices. God does not make us holy in the sense of character; He makes us holy in the sense of innocence, and we have to turn that innocence into holy character by a series of moral choices. These choices are continually in antagonism to the entrenchments of our natural life, the things which erect themselves as ramparts against the knowledge of God. We can either go back and make ourselves of no account in the Kingdom of God, or we can determinedly demolish these things and let Jesus bring another son to glory.” (pg. 520)
Gal. 2:20 “I am crucified with Christ.”
(Sept. 8 evening) “The evidence that I have accepted the Cross of Christ as the revelation of Redemption is that the regenerating life of God is manifested in my mortal flesh. Immediately I accept the Cross of Christ as the revelation of Redemption I am not, I must not be, the same man, I must be another man, and I must take up my cross from my Lord. The cross is the gift of Jesus to his disciples and it can only bear one aspect: ‘I am not my own.’ The whole attitude of the life is that I have given up my right to myself. I live like a crucified man. Unless that crisis is reached it is perilously possible for my religious life to end as a sentimental fiasco. ‘I don’t mind being saved from hell and receiving the Holy Spirit, but it is to much to expect me to give up my right to myself to Jesus Christ, to give up my manhood, my womanhood, all my ambitions.’ Jesus said, If any will be my disciple, those are the conditions. It is that kind of thing that offended the historic disciples, and it will offend you and me. It is a slander to the Cross of Christ to say we believe in Jesus and please ourselves all the time, choosing our own way.” (pg 521)
Oct. 6) “If Jesus Christ is to regenerate me, what is the problem He is up against? I have a heredity I had no say in’ I am not holy, nor likely to be; and if all Jesus Christ can do is to tell me I must be holy, His teaching plants despair. But if Jesus Christ is a Regenerator, One who can put into me His own heredity of holiness, then I begin to see what He is driving at when He says that I have to be holy. Redemption means that Jesus Christ can put into any man the hereditary disposition that was in Himself, and all the standards He gives are based on that disposition: His teaching is for the life He puts in. The moral transaction on my part is agreement with God’s verdict on sin in the Cross of Jesus Christ.
The moral miracle of Redemption is that God can put into me a new disposition whereby I can live a totally new life.” (pg.578)
I hope this helps to better understand what "holiness" looks like.
My e-mail is jowildflowers@gmail.com
My blog is jean-oathout.blogspot.com
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