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Straining for Holiness

September 24th, 30e by Brett Wagner

“Do you want to grow in personal holiness?  Maybe there’s a particular area of sin you battle that you want to overcome.  Here’s the temptation you’ll face.

Your pride and sinfully self-sufficient nature will tell you, “Okay, this material about the gospel has been great.  But now it’s time to put all that grace aside and get down to work.  It’s time to make some change happen and get holy!”

That’s not going to work.  Driven by legalistic fervor, you might appear to make progress; but it will be short-lived.  Only grace sustains lasting change and sanctification.  Through the cross we overcome not only the guilt of sin, but the power of sin as well.  Because of the cross we can successfully battle and overcome sinful patterns and practices.  The cross motivates us to be holy as our Father in heaven is holy.  The gospel empowers our ongoing pursuit of sanctification.”

Taken from “The Cross Centered Life” by C.J. Mahaney

Have you found this temptation to be true in your own life?  Have you experienced the gospel empowering your ongoing pursuit of holiness?

-brett

2 Responses to “Straining for Holiness”

  1. Mandy Says:
    October 23rd, 2007 at 11:38 pm

    I agree. Our holiness does not come from our striving attempts to create self-righteousness, but we are holy only because Christ dwells in our hearts. Our holiness is not a result of anything we can do on our own but is a result of an abiding relationship with the Creator.
    If we try to create holiness on our own, it no longer is holiness because we are imperfect and we cannot create something so pure as holiness. Our attempts to create it result in impure fabrications that only feed the pride of our self righteousness. It only through God, the only one who is holy, that we are given the privilege to receive holiness as a gift.

    Our pursuit of holiness should not come from selfish desires to be a better person but as a response to a holy Creator and a desire to know Him intimately. Thank God that we do not need to create our holiness on our own.

  2. Brett Says:
    October 25th, 2007 at 3:09 pm

    “Our attempts to create it result in impure fabrications that only feed the pride of our self righteousness.”

    Couldn’t have said it better myself!

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