God Desires Holiness

God Desires Holiness
I Peter 1.13-16
13Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. 14As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”a

Genesis 2.7
7the LORD God formed the mane from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

I once had a hole in my eardrum that had to be surgically patched. The surgeon attempted to apply a synthetic material that would eventually fuse within the eardrum to seal the hole to prevent future hearing loss. This material proved too weak to hold up in my ear, so another surgeon performed a similar, but more successful procedure. Rather than applying a synthetic material, he took skin from the other ear and patched the eardrum with it. The eardrum took more kindly to something it was used to, and the patch held, preventing any more hearing loss.

I thought of this story yesterday, and God reminded me of a valuable lesson out of it: it is only when we are patched by that which we are made for that we can be completely healed. How often we attempt to plug in stuff to fill in that hole in our hearts. We attempt to patch it with endless materialism, broken relationships, uncalled careers, and the list goes on. But is this what our Lord directs us to do? Of course not. I Peter says that we are to “set [our] hope fully on the grace to be given [us] when Jesus Christ is revealed.” In setting our hopes upon Christ, we are not “conform[ing] to the evil desires [we] had when [we] lived in ignorance.” We are not “just getting by.”

You see, beloved, our Lord has called us to holiness. Divine holiness is the business of Christ’s Church. God tells us to “be holy, because [He is] holy.” Just as only skin can patch an eardrum, only the original image of who created us can be our model for how to live. Holiness is not a religious ritual. It is a pattern of living that is borne out of the Christian’s unwavering reflection of Christ Jesus brought about by His presence in our hearts. In Genesis 2, we see the distinction between Man and the animals is that God breathed His own spirit into us. Our spirits are sourced from God, not the earth. Therefore, the holiness that irradiates from God irradiates in us. Holiness ought to beam out of us. No one should ever question whether we are living our lives for the glory of God. Genesis 2 states that it was only when God “breathed into [Man’s] nostrils the breath of life” that “the man became a living being.” If God’s spirit defines us, and holiness is within God’s spirit, it must be in us. It is not an optional matter. It is not for the better question or the anointed Christian. It is for those with Christ within them.

I know I’m nowhere near the standard of holiness that God calls. Most of us aren’t. But this is the process of God sanctifying us. You see, we are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb upon our acceptance of Jesus Christ, but it takes time to learn to live as He does. Our sinful nature is dead to us, but the ghost of its habits still tug upon our natural man. It is in times like these that we must remember holiness! Next week we will discuss God’s methods of working us towards holiness, but for now, if you’ve not desired holiness, if you’ve attempted to push synthetic objects into your life to plug that hole in your heart, stop. Allow God to fill it with His own hands. Let Him take the skin from Himself and patch it. Then His holiness can irradiate within you!