Normalizing Holiness

As a church, we just completed a study through Kevin DeYoung’s book, “A Hole in Our Holiness.” I have to admit when we started I thought “Whew, buckle up, here we go.” And although there was much conviction in my heart as I read the book each week, the way DeYoung explained and presented our pursuit of holiness made it less daunting.

Holiness is defined as being set apart, and in 1 Peter 1:16, we are commanded to be holy, because God is holy. That’s pretty mind-blowing. How can we pursue a journey towards holiness, being like God, dwelling in these sinful bodies? I’ll challenge you that it’s not an exercise of continually beating ourselves up for not measuring up, but a continual focus on Christ, our Savior.

Moving through this book, we learned God saved us to pursue holiness. We also learned that holiness does not equal perfection. That one was life-changing. We’ll never reach perfection this side of Heaven, so if we are striving for that daily – which we should – but falling backwards because we aren’t perfect, we’re missing the point. Quite often Dr. Cook says, “It’s two steps forward, one step back” in our spiritual journey. And that is exactly what it looks like to pursue holiness.

When we arrived at the end of the study, a chapter on abiding in Christ struck me as DeYoung pointed out what the formula is for being holy, and the pursuit of holiness. He summed it up in four simple steps:

1. Be committed to prayer
2. Be a student of the Bible and study the Word
3. Be involved and serving in your local church
4. Be a part of taking the Lord’s Supper

Does that sound like a Sunday School answer to you? It might, but ladies, that is what pursuing holiness is all about. I can almost envision Linus coming up to Charlie Brown and saying “Lights, please” and reciting these steps we need to follow to pursue the holiness in which we’re called.

Most churches and believers have turned the pursuit of holiness into a massive checklist where if you “do” enough you can be holy. We’ve taken the journey of holiness and turned it into a “holiness through works” much like we falsely create a salvation by works checklist. We sinners turned saints sure do struggle.

We should begin to normalize holiness. Let’s be more committed to pray specifically and intentionally for those in our lives. Let’s hold each other accountable to stay in the Word by asking each other, “What is the Lord teaching you this week?” And let’s be involved in NAOBC, serving each other, praying for each other, loving Christ’s bride. Abide in Him.

-Rose Booth