#02 Be holy!

[The New Testament presents the holy life to the believer not as an ideal, an ideal, but as a personal duty. The holy life is not considered very attractive by the average person, and indeed by many Christian people, because it is not considered a practical enough way of life. But we should not shy away from holiness. We do not need to smile at it, we do not need to despair about it, but we simply need to acknowledge that it is what the Lord desires and expects of every true believer in Him!Let us not imagine the holy man as he is portrayed! As we see them, for example, in the stained-glass windows of obscure churches: bloodless, helpless, simple-minded, dreamily pious! So this way of life is really unattractive to the rushing, practical man of the twentieth century. Holiness is not some diseased state of mind, no exaggerated religiosity - it is precisely the absence of the most perfect spiritual health, spiritual integrity and holiness that constitutes the sickness of the soul. Every Christian man who truly believes in God is a holy man! In the original language of the Old and New Testaments, the original meaning of the word "holy" is set apart, set aside for God. For example, the garments or vessels used in Old Testament worship were holy garments and holy vessels. Not in the sense that some unearthly glory of holiness shone upon them, so that they could hardly be looked upon or touched, but they were ordinary garments and vessels, only set apart and set apart from ordinary use, reserved for use in the house of God. Every Christian man should be holy in this sense. Jesus Christ has chosen us for Himself. He wants us to be different from other people, from the world. We are to keep ourselves and all our faculties for Him, belonging to Him and living His life! As our Word says, "But as he who called you is holy, so you also must be holy in all your life." (1 Peter 1:15)
I would now like to outline the features of this holiness. Let me say at the outset that this holiness is not a theory, but a very practical matter. It is not a fantasy, but a reality. It is not an emotional state, but an attitude. Not a principle, but a life in action! Holiness means, above all, a pure life, and a pure life from a pure heart. Purity means cleansing from sin. Purity means the renunciation of all thoughts, feelings and actions that are contrary to the will of God. God is a God who hates sin, who takes a stand against sin, and who separates Himself from sin. You can know you have met the Lord God by your hatred of sin. That sin begins to hurt. But not the sin of others, but your own sin. And not just sin in general, but your recognized sins, naming some of them by name. Do you know your sins at all, and do you love, cherish, hide your acknowledged sins? Do you turn a blind eye to them, or do you hate them and wish to be cleansed of them? The Word often warns us to "not conform yourselves to this world" (Rom 12:2). Purity means turning away from sin, turning your back on it.
God has also given us the standard, the rule, the pattern for a pure life. For us, the pattern is not the world, not the life of a man, however excellent he may be, living according to the world's wishes, not even the life of a respectable, serious Christian man. So we would very soon be satisfied with our own measure of purity. Not even the figure of a New Testament saint, an apostle Paul or an apostle John, but "as he that called you is holy, so be ye holy"! The measure of sanctification is Jesus Christ Himself, the manifestation of God in human flesh, Who was absolutely pure from all sin! We said that holiness means a pure life. But this pure life can only come from a pure heart. Jesus says: "From the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnesses, blasphemies." (Mt 15,19) The heart is the deepest root, the hidden root of all the manifestations of our self. It's easy to appear pure on the outside to ourselves and others, but the Lord examines hearts and He knows what's deep, deep down in the heart. No one can have a truly pure life without a pure heart. At the most, he can only practice certain seemingly pure actions, put on certain respectable habits and attitudes, but if his heart is not pure, even his best intentions will always remain impure!
What, then, is a pure heart? Not sinlessness, of course, for sinlessness is not on earth - it will be in heaven. A heart is cleansed when it is filled with sorrowful repentance. It comes to Christ, the sinless Savior, and when such a repentant heart - not the brain, but the heart - accepts the forgiveness that God freely gives by grace for the precious blood of Christ! Thus is understood the very precious declaration of God that the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin. It is the heart that is cleansed from all sin by this holy blood! A pure heart is in fact a new creation in human nature, the result of God's creative work. That is why the psalmist prays in penitential prayer in this way: "Create in me a pure heart, O God" (Psalm 51:12). He does not remake the old, nor does He make it new, but gives us a newly created heart. He gives it as a gift, free of charge. The reason why the Scriptures call this process of purification of the heart new birth, or more correctly, new birth, is because it means that something that was not there before has now become. It has not been transformed from the old, but has been born into the world anew. Something that was not in me before has been created in me by the creative work of God. This something is the pure heart, the new heart. With this heart it is only possible to love and serve God with purity. Only with this new heart can sin be hated from the heart, only then can life be pure from the heart. Be holy! Obedience to this divine requirement begins by bringing your unclean heart into true repentance and humility! Accept Him as the Son of God, who redeemed you from all uncleanness by His precious blood. Receive also by faith the new heart, cleansed from all sin, which He gives you. Without a pure heart you can only be a hypocritical Pharisee, but never a saint! Remember that a holy life is a pure life from a pure heart.
Another element of holy living is faithfulness in the performance of the duties of everyday life. Today, this faithfulness is sadly lacking even in the lives of Christian people. I read in a lecture at a conference in England that one of the characteristic symptoms of our times is that it is hard to find people who do their daily work with real honesty. They want to achieve as much as possible with as little effort as possible, to put personal interests first, to get as much as possible at the cost of any means, often not pure. The desire for profit, selfish materialism - this is the basic tone of most working life. It seems as if no one has any interest in their own work, or at least in doing it well. It is as if the ideal of service has died out. They slave away, unenthusiastic, obsessed, with a pregnant yoke. And the conference speaker concludes that, unfortunately, Christian people are not free from this spirit of our times. Well, my brothers and sisters, Christ would certainly live and work quite differently from us in the world today!
When Jesus appeared on earth in human flesh, His chief characteristic was to do perfectly the will of Him who sent Him, to be busy in the work of His Father, to accomplish completely all that He had to accomplish. For the night is coming when no one can work. With a clear conscience He could say on the cross, "It is finished!" All that was entrusted to him was finished! Of the thirty-three years he spent on earth, thirty years were spent in subjection to Joseph and Mary, serving obediently and humbly in the carpenter's shop in the Nazarene home. There, too, he did the will of God with complete faithfulness, and sanctified human work forever with the touch of his own hand of God. Then, when he went forth to his redeeming ministry, he never spared himself, spending every moment in faithful service to God and man. He was faithful and obedient to the end.
"As he who called you is holy" - that is, Christ - "so be ye holy" - in the same way! A holy life means the utmost fidelity in the performance of ordinary duties. To do with fidelity, with all one's heart, soul, mind, zeal and strength the work which is one's daily duty. In practice, holiness also means that a Christian man is a better worker, whether physically or spiritually, than any non-Christian man. A holy man is a man who performs all his duties well and completely in everyday life! God has also given us secular tasks to do, either in an office, or in a field, or in a tram. He expects us to do it with a heart as if we were doing it for Him! Thus may the drudgery become a blessed work, the occupation a vocation. This is what brings joy to service! When I see God's will, his purpose, his way for me in my ordinary tasks, this happy realization sweetens them, makes them precious. The holy man serves in obedience to God in the world everywhere. "Be ye holy" is the same as being faithful unto death in the performance of ordinary duty!
How is this possible? Isn't that the ultimate question! Would that it were truly the supreme question of us all! If only we could search from the depths of our hearts for the way to sainthood! Then we could joyfully receive the answer that holy life is the life of the Living Christ in us! Not our natural life, but His life! He must live and reign in us! The mystery of sainthood is that Christ penetrates a heart by His Holy Spirit and takes dominion there. "And as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God", we read in the Gospel of John (John 1,12). They are born again, they are born into a large family, the family of God, the family community of saints. Receive Christ into your heart, so that you may become holy in all your life, just as the One who called you is holy!
Amen.
Date: 10 August 1947.