I've been reading The Hole in our Holiness by Kevin DeYoung. I've appreciated DeYoung ever since I read Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God's Will last year. That book was eye-opening to me. He declared that you can make decisions that are biblically sound and you shouldn't be crippled by waiting or wondering what God's will is for your life. God's plan for your life is to love Him first and foremost. If your decisions are not sinful, you're within God's will. Deciding between two jobs? Are they ethical? Then make a decision and know that's the right one.
The Hole in our Holiness is about the fact that we don't take holiness seriously enough. I like the way DeYoung writes. A bit of humor, some abstract concepts, but plenty of solid theology and scripture to back it up. I think one thing I am not sure he has answered is exactly what holiness is. I always defined it as being set apart, and by the grace of the Holy Spirit, pursuing godliness and obedience to our heavenly father. How does one do that though? I think the easiest answer, for me, is that it goes back to my heart and how my heart deals with things like the fruits of the spirit.
I'd sort of ignored the second part of some of my favorite verses. From Eph 1:3-4:
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.
Heb 12:12 - 14:
12 Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, 13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. 14 Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
Just a couple of a number of verses on holiness. I'm not going to cover the reasons for holiness, cause then I would be rewriting DeYoung's book (or plagiarizing it).
But I read a chapter last night that blew my mind. It was as if he were reading my mind about my struggles with holiness. First, he talked about grace and how our emphasis on grace is so much on what we cannot do in and of ourselves. I have thought so often about how my works are like filthy rags (from Isaiah), and how I cannot do anything worth doing aside from the holy spirit. He said that it's not scripturally responsible to say that it's impossible to obey and impossible to pursue righteousness because our works are tainted. So many of our biblical examples did pursue righteousness - like Joseph, like Zechariah and Elizabeth, who were pronounced "righteous before God."
Why do I do this, denigrate my own spiritual offerings? Having a small understanding of my own sin is one reason. But another reason is that "we equate obedience with perfection." He says "God does not expect our good works to be flawless in order to be good....God is pleased by through Christ to accept our sincere obedience, although it contains many weaknesses and imperfections." My struggle has been, why even try, after all, if my works are so pathetic? God will work it out. The Holy Spirit will work it out. And the Holy Spirit does. But we, too, should recognize that it's pleasing to the Lord to make the efforts to holiness. These efforts are nothing without Christ, but He works out our sanctification through these efforts.
The caution here, of course, is to avoid legalism and making idols of these attempts at holiness. I pray that my heart is changed about what holiness is, why we should strive for it, and what I do in my day-to-day. Because of His grace alone, I'm an adopted daughter. And by His grace, I'm being sanctified by Him.
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