Today’s reading: Ezekiel 13; 2 Corinthians 7
“Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.”
I struggled with verses like this opening verse of 2 Corinthians 7 for a long time. I would read these verses and feel pretty far from any kind of reflection of God’s holiness and righteousness, and not really feel like I was growing in holiness at all, but the prescription I received from the Christians around me was, more or less, to ignore it. I don’t think they were intending to tell me to ignore it, but that was, ultimately, their advice.
I came to know the Lord in a church that highly prizes knowledge and evangelism. The focus of Christian life in that church is largely around winning someone to the Lord, discipling them (teaching them the Bible, as well as how to argue for their faith, win the lost, teach, lead, etc.). The goal is essentially a Christian pyramid scheme where you win and disciple a few folks who win and disciple a few folks who do the same. To be clear, when I call it a Christian pyramid scheme, I don’t mean that in a derogatory way, it’s really just a good visual for how the church is organized and functions.
When I first came to know the Lord, I do think I grew quite a bit in that setting. I learned a ton, gained a lot of practical experience, and had a lot of opportunities to love and serve others. But I remember a point at which I began to feel like there was something missing in my own spiritual life, and it came from the many verses where we are called to holiness. For all the knowledge and capability I had, I really didn’t feel like my life reflected the Lord’s holiness in the way I felt it should. When I expressed this to others, the response I got was to learn the Word, serve, disciple, evangelize, etc., and any growth God wanted would come naturally, or He would bring things up when He wanted to. The problem was that I was already doing all those things, and I also felt like He was exactly bringing it up, but I didn’t know what more I should be doing, or what it looked like to actively pursue growing in holiness. This is why I say that the advice I received, over and over, was basically to do nothing, because it was only to do what I was already doing. I actually had one leader wonder out loud in a conversation about this if it might be spiritual attack, and Satan was drawing my attention there to get me diving into an inward focus rather than focusing on loving and serving others. He didn’t seem to realize the absolute absurdity of suggesting it was God’s enemy, rather than the Holy Spirit, leading me to want to follow God’s oft repeated instruction to grow increasingly into His image and holiness…
I bring this up because, while I think the church I was in at the time (which, to be clear, is an amazing church, filled with people who genuinely love the Lord and want their lives to count for Him) is a bit of an extreme example of this, this king of mentality is not all that uncommon in many evangelical churches today. I think it is largely a reaction against the more traditional church settings that many of the founders and leaders of these churches grew up in, where people could talk a great holiness game, but their lives were no different for it. To combat that, the pendulum swung fully to the other side, where living a life of faithful good works became the focus, and holiness is almost viewed as a mask Christians put on to pretend they have it together, rather than really going out to love and serve people in Jesus’ name.
Honestly, if I have to have it one way or the other, I would take the community zealous to serve the Lord every day, but verses like this one also make it clear that such a community is missing something. God does call us to a life of practical faithfulness, but He also calls us to a life of holiness. Our lives should stand out and look different in a way that draws the attention of a watching world and causes them to stop and ask what makes us the way we are. The difference of God’s people, the holiness of our lives, is what gives real voice to the gospel we proclaim.
The veneer of holiness is no substitute for faithfulness, but part of living faithfully for the Lord is actively pursuing and growing in holiness.
No comments:
Post a Comment