holiness.

I can't sleep, and the fact that I have to be up to lead worship in two hours is not helping my insomnia. So I thought I'd blog because it has been far too long and a lot has happened. Since I last blogged I have accepted a full-time ministry position and am starting Monday. With that, I've made several new commitments in my life to Christ, but the one keeping me up tonight is the idea of holiness.

It is so easy to pass off the pursuit of holiness by saying it is unattainable. The entire, "be holy, even as I am holy," argument doesn't get much ground in current culture because even devout Christians have become obsessed with seeing how much one can get by with without risking judgement. Life has become, for many, a long-line of well-thought out excuses for lapses in holiness, or sin. I know this because for a great while my life fell prey to this flawed way of thinking.

Oswald Chambers said, "holiness, not happiness is the chief end of man." We are programmed from a young age to believe that these two things cannot live in harmony, that they are mutually exclusive. This question came up in a class I am teaching a couple weeks ago, "can you live both a life of happiness (as defined by you) and fulfillment (as defined by God)?" The answers were extremely varied and honestly leaned more to saying that both were not compatible. One had to chose their fate, choose whether they wanted to live a life that existed to exemplify the Glory of God in all things or to be happy with their place in life, be good Christians, go to church, and live the American Dream.

I have come to believe, after living a few years the mentality that normalcy was the chief end (you know, house, white-picket fence, lots of puppies) that the only way to find my own joy is through the pursuit of God in my life and His glory. I've been reading out of Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper for my young-adults class and have been convicted on many counts by the message he presents:

Somehow there has wakened in me a passion for the essence and main point of life. 

The ethical question, "whether something is permissible," faded in relation 

to the question, "What is the main thing?"

The thought of building a life around minimal morality or minimal significance--

a life defined by the question, "What is permissible?"--

felt almost disgusting to me.

There was a time in my life when I felt so convicted by the Holy Spirit that even the slightest step outside of the pursuit of righteousness would keep me up at night. So often we become numbed to that tugging because of circumstance, because of convenience that we forget how rewarding and truly joy-filled the holy life can be. I have made a decision, for several different reasons, to pursue a life full of joy by way of holiness in my life. 

I am inspired and compelled by Philippians 1:20-21 and it's urge toward holiness that is compelled out of love and honor to Christ, not fear: 

as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, 

but that with full courage now as always, Christ will be honored

in my body,

whether by life or by death.

For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.

So that's what I'm thinking about right now, how to best honor God in my body, in my life, in my conversation, in my appearance, in my relationships, in my thinking. To say it is an easy task is the understatement of the century, but the entire purpose of our existence on both earth and in eternity is to glorify and magnify God...not to pursue some silly scheme that will leave us wanting more in the end. 

If we really are going to see revival in our generation, if we are ever to see the lost come to Christ, it requires a commitment to life a God-centered, God-glorifying, Self-dying life by the body of Christ. A daily decision to pursue what is righteous, true, and pure.