Holiness: Becoming Holy

Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.

Hebrews 12:14

Do you ever think, I have tried to be holy…but I cannot. I have given it my best shot, and I simply cannot do it. It is an impossible task. Others may be able, but I am not. The strain of trying to be holy is too much; it wears me out.

A man said recently, “Gosh, I wish I could be like He seems so committed to the Lord. I find it impossible to live the Christian life; I’m always messing up.”

The story of the human race is the story of human weakness and frailty. We strive to be strong, self-sufficient overcomers; we are instead often weak, worn-out, and weary. We leave a trail of broken relationships and unkept promises.

Our virtuous motives give way to the fantasies of the flesh. Our good intentions dissolve in a sea of self-centeredness. Our most noble thoughts occupy the space immediately adjacent to our most perverted ones. Our most admirable ambitions suffocate under the avalanche of the urgent. The juggernaut of the daily press squeezes truth into a once-a-week compartment.

This will never do. We must be holy. The Scriptures state clearly, “without holiness no one will see the Lord.” If we cannot be holy, then how will we ever see the Lord? But how can we ever be holy?

What Is Holiness?

The holiness we are to exhibit is not our own, but the holiness of Christ in us. We are not holy, and we will not become holy humans. Christ in us can manifest His holiness if we will yield our flesh to Him. This is not a human operation; it is a spiritual one. Jesus installs His holiness in us by grace. Not a once-for-all-time transaction, this is a daily, moment-by-moment striving to live more by the Spirit and less by the flesh.

Though becoming more holy is God’s work in us, it is not a passive enterprise. Our part is active, to strive and strain toward the high calling we have received. God’s part is to forgive our failings based on the merit of Christ’s atoning death.

His will is that we become holy. “It is God’s will that you should be holy” (1 Thessalonians 4:3). This kind of holiness is not the result of our own best effort. Rather, we are to so yield to the Lord Jesus that He can operate as Himself in our lives. His will is that we be holy, but we will be holy only in proportion to how much we yield to the Spirit and not the flesh.

Our problem is that we want to become holy in the same way we want a new car or a raise or a good meal. We want it right now. A friend bought his daughter a new car, but it must sit in the garage until she reaches the legal driving age. Until her sixteenth birthday she only has partial use of the car, when accompanied by an adult. Similarly, holiness is like a gift already purchased for us (by the blood of Christ), but we cannot have full use of it until a certain date in the future (our glorification).

Our Part

Becoming holy is a process which includes God’s part and our part. On one hand, our part is to stay out of God’s part—to yield, to surrender, to stop seeking God on our own terms. But our part also is to obey. It is to enter His rehabilitation program.

When you put yourself under a doctor’s care, he cannot help you if you don’t follow his instructions. As the patient surrenders his own good ideas and obeys the doctor’s instruction, he becomes well. The same is true in sanctification. If you and I want to be made holy, then we must willingly surrender ourselves to His care, and we must also actively obey His instructions.

We have no more power to make ourselves holy than a dying man has to save himself. We are weak and tired, and we cannot offer much help. However, we can submit to His rehabilitation program—sanctification. The key to our part is faith—to seek Him in obedience. “Anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).

If our part is only to have faith, then why do the Scriptures say, “make every effort…to be holy?” It is because the Scriptures speak of faith actively, not passively. Our effort is the obedience which comes from faith, effort which expresses gratitude for the holiness we freely receive from the merit of Christ.

Satan would have us think our effort makes us holy or, more correctly, that the failure of our effort dooms us to be unholy. But our sanctification is a process of sin and surrender, over and over again. Holiness is a process of becoming, not a state of being.

God’s Part

The forgiveness of Christ makes us holy; He washed away our sin. In reality, God in us—the Holy Spirit—makes us holy. There is no possibility of holiness apart from His grace. He calls us, He justifies us, He sanctifies us (makes us holy), and He will glorify us—all by His grace.

Our part is to surrender in faith; God’s part is to implant the sanctifying Holy Spirit in us. “So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature” (Galatians 5:16). Because of His everlasting love, we know Him, and He is faithful to mold us into the character of His Son Jesus Christ—to make us holy.

This occurs on an eternal horizon, not a temporal one. So as you and I take a few temporal steps and fall, like a toddler learning to walk, our loving Father exhorts us to make the effort to get up and try again—by yielding to the process of His sanctification. When we leave the world that is passing away and enter the kingdom of heaven, we will take full possession of our holiness.

I SURRENDER

Father, I long deeply to be different, to be holy as Christ is holy. I confess I have focused on my own effort and not the enabling of Your Holy Spirit. I surrender myself completely to Your will, “that I should be holy.” Now have Your own way with me as I wobble along for these next few steps. Your love compels me to try again. Amen.