Part of me is screaming, "You should change the name of your blog!! You knew you wouldn't be able to write every day! Quit being misleading!!" :P The other part is whispering, "That's really retarded. Everyone knows life happens. The goal is to write at all..." I'm listening to the quieter voice, so I'm going to start off the day by writing (if I can manage to do that while trying to keep the kitten out of my hot chocolate).
It's been such a mountaintop kind of week for me. I've been in such an energetic, happy mood that it's still a bit unreal to me. But, happy mood or not, there's an underlying joy that's been revived, and I feel like the Spirit is feeding that joy every day in gentle, faithful ways.
I've been thinking a lot about holiness the past few days after the teaching on Sunday and then again on Wednesday night. It's funny: the teaching on Wednesday was out of 2 Corinthians 10, not 1 Peter...and it really didn't directly address holiness. But I felt like God gave me one of those lightbulb moments before church sometime that made a connection between the concept of holiness and the concept of meekness/gentleness that we talked about Wednesday night. I had already started thinking about how it is God who is making us holy, not by our own efforts to clean ourselves up, but by his sovereign grace and the regenerative power of the Holy Spirit at work in our hearts. And then I started thinking about love, and how our greatest commandment throughout the Bible is love. I know at first glance, I brushed it off as too simplistic. It sounds too much like a Beatles song to be biblical truth. But you know what? God is love. Says so in the Bible. If we are being remade into God's image, into the likeness of Christ (Christian = Christ-follower), into holiness, then what will be the defining characteristic of our lives? LOVE. Being holy as he is holy doesn't mean make a rule book and beat people over the head with it out of righteous anger. We talked about that on Wednesday night. Where did the church get off on its "holy crusade" of righteous anger? We're called to love one another!
"Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35
"In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." Matthew 5:16
He didn't say that everyone would know that you are my disciples by the way you yell Bible verses at people, heaping condemnation and our own judgements on them. He said love each other, and do the good deeds He's set out for us to do. Imitating the meekness and humility and gentleness of Christ means that we allow God's power to speak through our quietness; not that we try to *force* His kingdom by our own power. I'm so glad that Chris said that on Wednesday, because how many times have I gotten angry, hurt, and defensive, and used "righteous anger" to justify my angry words toward someone? I'm supposed to turn the other cheek, not stand up and defend my "rights." I'm supposed to use a kind word to turn away wrath, not yell an angry word to prove my point. I'm supposed to pray for those who persecute me, not scream at them on Fox News. I'm supposed to forgive as God forgave me, not hold grudges against those who hurt me. I'm supposed to love as God loves because I'm being made holy as God is holy! People won't see the loving, forgiving, truth-telling Christ in my life if I'm not loving, forgiving, and telling the truth in love. There IS a way to tell the truth with gentleness, meekness (power under control), and love, but we get so caught up in our own pride that we forget that it's God's power in us that does the convicting, not our indignant words.
Let's be people characterized by love, putting off words of hate, anger, and malice, and putting on the humility of Christ. Let the world see Christ in us: the Christ who forgives us and loves us too much to not make us holy.
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