Wisdom On ... Holiness
I'm getting ready to spend Thanksgiving with my family in California. My parents home is on a couple of acres and I loved growing up with land all around me. My brothers and I used to dig holes in the back of the field behind our house. When we were on vacation we would wake up early in the morning and start digging and often keep digging until time to sleep. We could do this everyday for days in a row.That is the funny thing about holes, they can always be a little deeper and a little wider. When are we ever really done?
Thinking about this today led me to this passage in 1 Thess 4.
1Finally, brothers, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more.This passage has always fascinated me because the Thessalonians are praised for living lives that are pleasing to God, but they are encouraged to do so even more. Like the "hole" in my backyard, the pursuit of God's holiness is never exhausted. We can always go a bit deeper and wider.
I sometimes tend to fall into a few traps when I live to please God.
1. I get all "legalistic" about behavior.
This usually leads to me to living to a set of standards without really grasping their meaning. Soon I am following all these rules, rather than living in right relationships with God and others. So I have to figure out how to please God "more and more" without it becoming about rules.
2. I start thinking of God's love as something I have to earn.
Once I start living to please God, I sometimes make the mistake of believing that it is my action that earns God's love rather than my pleasing actions being a response to God's love. So I have to remember that God's love is unconditional, that I have to experience it first and then allow my pleasing behavior to be in response to God's love. If I do the reverse, I miss the point!
That said, I sometimes forget that God wants me to keep improving!
Because I feel that God's love isn't dependent on my actions, I forget that His desire for me is to live in a manner that is pleasing to Him. I can still grow more and more.
1 Thess 4:7 For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. 8Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.
9Now about brotherly love we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. 10And in fact, you do love all the brothers throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers, to do so more and more.
As the bumper sticker says, "God loves you just as you are, and way too much to leave you that way"!
This Thanksgiving I am thankful for God's holiness, that He loves me despite my lack of holiness, and that He gives me power to live a holy life more and more each day.
About Mark Matlock
Mark is founder of PlanetWisdom.com and the nationwide PlanetWisdom Conferences. For nearly two decades, he has ministered to youth pastors, students, and their parents. Focusing on transferring Biblical wisdom, Mark’s the author of the recent six book series Wisdom On…, What Does God Want From Me?, and Don’t Buy the Lie. In Fall 2008, Mark launched the nation-wide initiative Real World Parents aimed at reclaiming the Biblical role for families across the country. He resides in Dallas with his wife, Jade, and his two children.
