There are a few scary verses in the Bible that I would like to avoid thinking about, but I can’t. This one I am writing an entire book about, so there you go. There’s nothing like facing your fears and overcoming them in faith through the word of God.

“Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness, no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many” (Hebrews 12:14-17 NIV).

“Without holiness, no one will see the Lord,” the author to the Hebrews says as if it were obvious. And maybe it is. But not very many of us feel up to the task of being “holy” consistently. We tend to read the word “perfection” as the word “holiness” but that isn’t quite fair.

We know that our “righteousness” comes from being in Christ. He took my sin, and I received his righteousness. That is why I can receive the Holy Spirit as a guarantee of my salvation. The only issue there is to make sure that I am not fooling myself into thinking that I am a Christian when I’m not. There is evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of a Christian after all.

Salvation or Sanctification

But the ideas of “perfection” and “holiness” seem to be more about sanctification and our lives after we become Christians. That is a hodgepodge of problems if ever there was one. We are more aware of our sin on the one hand and more aware of our inability to deal with that sin consistently on the other hand. What are we to do?

Do we cry out with Paul in Romans 7 “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?” Of course, he answers that Christ will rescue him but is he talking about salvation or sanctification, before we are saved or after, or both? That is the question.

Set Aside for a Purpose

Another thought that many have pointed out is that the word “holiness” may include the concept of “spotless” or “blameless”, but it is focused on the idea that we have been set aside for a particular purpose. Like the bowls and instruments in the Temple used for the sacrifices, which had a particular purpose and had to be clean and spotless in order to be used. The concept of being set aside for a particular purpose is helpful. The idea of being spotless and blameless not so much.

But then we have Paul’s discussion on us as “broken vessels of clay” in 2 Corinthians 4:7 NIV where he says, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” That sounds a bit better.

Besides it is the work of Jesus to present us without spot or blemish before the throne of God on the final day (Ephesians 5:25-27 NIV) where it says “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” So, there is nothing to fear.

Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our Faith

Jesus will make us “holy and blameless” when we are presented to God, His Father, on the final day. There is the question of how he accomplishes that and how we participate in that and those are serious questions. Just like we can be deceived about our true standing before God and not be Christians at all because we have no evidence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, it is also true that we can be deceived about the process of sanctification that God calls us to, and that Jesus uses to bring us to a place of being “holy and blameless.” Yes, we have to participate in the process. Paul is clear about that in almost every verse he writes, not to mention the rest of the Bible.

To start with, Christians don’t continue to live in the flesh but rather walk in the Spirit. That sounds obvious but most people who call themselves Christians don’t do so either because they don’t know what it means to walk in the Spirit or because they prefer the easier route that ensnares them in the religious spirit and makes them nothing more than worldly churchgoers.

Holiness is Walking in the Spirit.

By definition, Christians “walk in the Spirit” and have the power to do so (with growing maturity). If we are not fully surrendered and consecrated to God’s service, then the question is how do we even know that we are saved? And isn’t that what holiness means, after all?

If we fall into sin, we have to learn to quickly confess and repent and return to a life lived in the shadow of the cross walking in the Spirit in loving obedience to God’s will to be used by Him in His great rescue operation.

We are crucial to God’s plans because He has chosen to use us as living testaments to the glory and power of His character in us fulfilling the demands of His Holy Justice in His own body on the cross.

Love fulfilling justice, not setting it aside.

We cannot define “walking in the Spirit” as positional sanctification rather than, the more obvious, experiential sanctification. Almost as if fleshly living is simply immaturity rather than dangerous rebellion or deadly spiritual drift, or worse yet, an indication that we aren’t even Christians in the first place.

Or all of the above.

I suppose that if you are a Christian and your salvation is secure, then fleshly living is immaturity and dangerous to your growth and ministry (but not to your salvation) but, by definition, it must also be temporary because the Spirit will convict you of sin and bring you back to a conscious walking with/in the Spirit assuming that you are a Christian in the first place.

Holiness and the Assurance of Faith

But the question is, how do you know you are a Christian if you continue to live in the flesh? You can believe that you are, but if it is true, your normal state is walking in the Spirit. If you are not walking in the Spirit in full surrender and consecration, then there is no assurance of salvation unless you run to the cross in confession and repentance of sins.

After all, if the heart is deceitful above all things, how do you know that you are a Christian? Is it just a matter of taking God at his word or is it a matter also of seeing the evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit (our seal of salvation, our guarantor of eternal life, our promise of the power for a new relationship with God) in our lives?

And what is that evidence? Spiritual gifts? Yes. Spiritual fruit? Yes. But Jonathan Edwards, the great American theologian who lived during the Great Awakening in America, said that it could all be false and counterfeit except for the humility of true confession, repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation between us and God and others.

And that humility is at the heart of relational holiness.

The shadow of the cross is a place of humility which is rooted in love and despises the shame of revealing its sin and deceit for the joy of reconciliation with the desire of your heart (which is the true convicting work of the Spirit).

So, what do we say about the masses of churchgoers (Christians? non-Christians? a mixture?) who live lives that are not surrendered or consecrated? The Christian life is distinctive. It is different from the world and distinguishes itself from the flesh.

Preaching must be clear about the abundant life and that it is not optional but the normal Christian life. It is a life lived in the shadow of the cross.

Relationally, we walk in the Spirit and when we fall into temptation for whatever reason, we quickly confess and repent because we want to be in right fellowship with God more than we want to live apart from Him in sin and rebellion. This is focused on conscious sin, of course, even though we are polluted with sin in every way, in every motive of our hearts. But there is grace even for that.

Holiness is like Marriage.

Is this not true of every marriage, every couple in love? If it is not, then there is no love relationship even if they have been declared “married.” Marriage is a matter of the heart not of the law or ceremony or even of good intentions.

Do you love me? is the cry of the heart. It is also the cry of God´s heart in Christ.

No cheap grace allowed. The cost of a new life in Christ is living the new life in Christ. The cost of marriage is the exclusion of all others and a heartfelt desire for the object of our love.

As Christians, we are different. Our beliefs and values have changed. Our actions reflect those changes, and we live on the edge of faith, working out the salvation that God has placed within us. Yes, there is room for growth in obedience but, relationally, it is there, or it is not. You are either with God (and in Christ) or you are not.

Growth is normal in all relationships, but you are either in the relationship or you are not. Now be (live out) what you already are (a new person in Christ). Now be the husband or wife that you already are.

Holiness is simple and complex.

That is not to say, that on a deeper level, this question of the heart isn’t, in fact, the most important issue to God and that, in His grace, he allows us to rebel and fall away for a time to reveal our hearts to us to increase our awareness of His grace and thereby increase our love for Him which keeps us more firmly on the path. But that “complex good” is up to him and not an excuse for us to use to fall into sin.

Even in marriage, temptations can happen, and we can even fall, and any betrayal is a deep hurt to the other precisely because of the love that they have for us. But forgiveness based on the cross is still possible. In the context of true confession and ongoing repentance on the one side and forgiveness based on the cross and reconciliation based on the promise of God to finish his work in the life of the sinner, a new life is possible.

It is even possible to say that the restored life is deeper and richer than the romantic life in a marriage (and restoration can ignite a deeper and longer-lasting romance).

But we may not fall into the lazy “cheap grace” attitude that says that we will allow ourselves to sin so that grace may abound (we can always repent later on). I can feel the pain in God’s heart at such a crass betrayal of His love and I have often been the cause of that pain. Forgive me, Lord.

We pursue the “simple good” (says C.S. Lewis) of walking in the Spirit free from conscious and intentional sin by the power of the Holy Spirit and quickly confess and repent when we fall into sin and temptation. God works the more “complex good” (again from C.S. Lewis) of transforming even our sins into a deeper relationship with Him.

God may use our sin to reveal His grace, but we are expected to live in the Spirit by faith and not sin in the first place. God is looking for mature believers who have learned to love him deeply from the heart because they want to not because of the benefits. These are the kinds of people he is creating, and which are very useful to his purpose of rescuing his people from the clutches of the Devil.

Sanctification has a purpose after all. We are significant to God’s plans on earth.

Much of the disagreement between the major views of sanctification is semantics but I’m not sure it makes much difference in real life. I think that God can work effectively in people’s hearts even if they get some of this doctrine wrong (just like in the early church).

Living in the Flesh or Grieving the Spirit

Certainly, the concept of eternal security makes a big difference, but the concept of “flesh” used by Christians who are not walking in the Spirit is minor. Still, it is helpful to remember that God is there even when we are “living in the flesh” even if that isn’t really the right way to describe what is going on.

Paul makes it clear that “living in the flesh” is something that non-Christians do and not Christians. We cannot “live in the flesh” by definition. It would be more accurate to say that we are “grieving the Spirit” (or better yet, we are living as if we were still in the flesh which we are not which is why the Spirit is grieved). That makes it more “relational” which is helpful.

Let me say it again. We are living as if we were still in the flesh which we are not which is why the Spirit is grieved. Just like in marriage, we can live like we are single when we are not, which is very hurtful to our spouse because it puts in doubt the relationship itself.

Stay, Talk, and Try

But let me come back to that issue of security in my relationship with God because of the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life. If I am a Christian, I belong to God. Period.

If I fall into “flesh” living it is immature rebellion and dangerous to my growth and ministry. Like in any relationship, I have to Stay, Talk and Try. Staying is the point here.

Just like the movie "Catch Me If You Can” with Tom Hanks and Leonardo Di Caprio about the young forger running away from the FBI, at one point Tom Hanks says, “Nobody is chasing you.” You are already part of the FBI family. Stay.

In many ways, staying is harder than running away. Staying is about love. Running is about shame. Do you want to stay? Then stay. You will have to humble yourself and talk (confess) and try (repentance and “make every effort”) but the fundamental question is what do you want?

The Example of Hosea and Gomer

And perhaps God allows us to go there, precisely to reveal to us what is in our hearts, the glory of wanting to stay more than wanting to go (to sin, to rebel) and, as that wanting grows into desire and then into love (the reason for wanting to stay is in the other not in the benefits to you), God teaches us and help us to grow in intimacy with God.

After all, according to the book of Hosea, we are like old, past our prime, prostitutes that a good man decided to marry. The relationship is there but we have to learn how to love one man again, a good man who deserves a woman who is set aside only for him. Of course, we find it hard to see ourselves the way that God sees us but, if you check your heart, you will realize that your love for God is weak and sporadic and the temptation to commit adultery can overwhelm that spark of love, as it did with Gomer.

So, it isn’t about a second blessing or a higher life or a deeper life because they all seem to assume that it is normal (and certainly, common) for Christians to be living un-surrendered, un-consecrated lives in the first place. No, the normal (even if uncommon) Christian life is lived walking in the Spirit in full surrender to Your will and consecration to Your service in whatever creational context that You have given us.

Yes, the abundant life is used in Scripture to describe this normal state of walking in the Spirit and, yes, the abundant life is “deeper” and “higher” than walking in the flesh (which, by definition, means “apart from God”). But the point is, that if we are Christians who are intentionally rebelling or consciously sinning and are unrepentant, then we should be grieving too in some way if we truly love God.

Holiness and Church Discipline

Church discipline is not about the sin so much as it is about an ongoing conversation with the sinner about whether or not there is grief and conviction which leads to repentance.

If not, as a church, we may have to make it clear that there is no evidence of the work and presence of the Holy Spirit of God in their lives and the church needs to treat them as a “gentile” in need of salvation rather than as a Christian in need of restoration.

So long as the teaching of the abundant life is clearly stated as the normal Christian life and that we are not simply “walking in the flesh” when we intentionally disobey or slowly drift away. We are, but so much more. We are “grieving the Spirit” because we are living as if we were apart from God when in fact, the Spirit of God now lives within us (if that is in fact the case).

No one can hurt you like someone you love.

Yes, non-believers also grieve the heart of God in a sense but there is a response of ultimate judgment if they are not saved. For those of us who are saved by the blood of Christ, we are the children of God and have the power to hurt God deeply precisely because of that love, that new relationship that the cross has made possible.

But we need grace even for ourselves otherwise we are still in our pride wanting to be seen and counted as perfect or holy or spiritual by others without the humiliation and shame of transparent confession and ongoing repentance. We need to practice a constant clinging to the cross for our conscious sins as well as our unconscious, unintentional sins, and overall pollution. No pride allowed, spiritual or otherwise.

We can’t deal with everything all at once. My knowledge exceeds my obedience and always will in this life.

Rather than minimize the sin (by ignoring some sins or not looking closely at our motives and intentions), we have to learn to maximize God’s grace (despite our conscious, semi-conscious, and partly intentional and unintentional sins and overall pollution) and stay in the process of learning to “make every effort” to live in the shadow of the cross.

Holiness and the Maturity Continuum

Perhaps it is helpful to talk in terms of immaturity, growing in maturity and maturity. Assuming that you are a Christian and you desire through the work and presence of the Spirit to be in fellowship with God and are willing, therefore, to humble yourself as often as necessary through confession, repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation, then we can talk about the maturity continuum.

Perhaps immaturity in Christ should be seen as that initial wrestling with God about loving obedience to His will. We surrender and then rebel. We consecrate ourselves to his service but refuse to deny ourselves and take up our cross daily (confession, repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation are the way of the cross).

Maturity is the ability to remain in the shadow of the cross in full surrender and consecration and includes the desire to quickly return to fellowship after falling temporarily into sin. So, on the relational side of things, it is black and white, immaturity or maturity (although there is room for growth).

After all, we are like prostitutes, like Gomer, who have destroyed our ability to love but have been called into a new relationship with our bridegroom, pregnant with new life, but untested and immature in our commitment.

In either case, untested love or inability to love, it is the relationship itself that is the question. What do you want? Do you love me more than anyone or anything else?

This is a black-and-white question but it may have to be asked more than once (growth in maturity) and God is especially good at revealing our idols and asking for our permission to rip them out of our lives inch by inch, step by step, to increase our capacity to love Him by forcing us to decide between them and Him, by shedding light on them, bringing them out of the darkness and into his light and asking us to crucify that idol of flesh upon the cross of Christ in confession, repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

In that sense, there is an immaturity and maturity that prioritizes the relationship over other things. This process is a deep and necessary one but, in the process, even though we are already married (assuming that we are, in fact, Christians), there are periods in which we have rebelled and are sitting in the bar, nursing our beer and flirting with the barmaid.

The question is whether or not our hearts are in pain, grieving the breakup, nursing the hurt, misunderstanding, or sense of injustice that caused the rupture, or rejoicing at the opportunity to get away and be free to do our own thing.

As leaders, we must be at the point in our relationship with Christ that we can say that God has brought us to a place of tested maturity in which we have demonstrated a true, growing love for God and a desire for His fellowship and when we sin, we quickly return to the safety and joy of the shadow of the cross.

Then there is the question of growing in maturity. That is only possible on the other side of full surrender and consecration, not for those who are temporarily in a place of rebellion. If you are grieving the Spirit, the issue is to make up and reassert your love and desire to be in fellowship. The relationship comes first.

Holiness is About the Relationship

Sadly, the focus for many individuals and churches is on the sin itself, as terrible as that may be, instead of on the relationship between the individual and His God which is the heart of the matter.

But, if you are living in the shadow of the cross, then growth in obedience, in Christlikeness, in virtue, and in ministry can happen.

If you are living in rebellion and sin, search your heart to find out what you truly want, talk to some Christian leaders who can clarify any misunderstandings you may have about God and what He is doing in your life, and then decide, again and again, if necessary, to choose the love of God in Christ or to turn to your own ways. Is God good and my heart evil? Or is God evil and my heart good? Is he in the wrong or am I in the wrong?

Love is always a decision but make sure that you know deep down that whatever God is doing in your life, whatever the circumstances are, He is in control, and He loves you. That is the basis of the relationship.

If you don’t truly believe that you may need to start at the beginning and take a good, long hard look at the cross of Christ to see your sin and God’s provision of grace who loved us even unto death while we were still sinners.

The point is that if we are living in sin and rebellion and we know it, then we must first ask ourselves whether we are, in fact, “married” to God or not and, if we are, then are we truly “in love” with God or not and, if so, since He is good and in control and we are his children and need to learn to love and trust Him, we must be in the wrong and must confess and repent (and get help to continue to repent until the sin is overcome in the power of the Spirit however long it takes). Whew. That was a long sentence but chock full of good stuff.

No growth in Christlikeness or virtue can happen while we are in a state of open rebellion or spiritual drift. No growth in love in a marriage can happen while we remain uncommitted to the relationship and are unwilling to put in the time, effort, and resources to be the spouse that we are and to find that sweet spot where we want to be there and to be in fellowship with the desire of our heart.

We live out a redemptive focus in a creational context but even our redemptive focus consists of our life ministry lived out in the relational context of our walk with God. That may seem obvious, but it is, in fact, rather uncommon.

Holiness and our Life Ministry

Our true “life ministry” (which is to reveal the glory of God’s character as shown in Christ) is an overflow of our walk with God in the same way that our church ministry (according to our gifts and roles) is an overflow of our life ministry.

So, again, the relational question (even for Christians) is the essential question of the heart and can be seen on a spectrum from immaturity (struggling with God, unwilling to give up ground, focused on injustice) to maturity (struggling with sin in the power of the Spirit, quickly bringing faults to the cross because we know we are loved and have been bought with a price, wanting to be obedient out of love not for the temporal benefits in terms of feelings or success). Immaturity is bad. Maturity is good in any relationship, even with yourself.

But that doesn’t mean that we can’t learn something important when we begin to recognize our immaturity for the selfishness that it is and then consciously choose love. After all, that is how maturity happens, in a relationship (even when babies arrive), when you have something to lose.

Morality may be a limit to our will, but love doesn’t even consider our will to be important because it is focused on the other. When we want to do what morality demands of us, or what the relationship expects from us, it is no longer a sacrifice but, rather, a willing heart doing exactly what it wants to do. That is the true freedom of love.

Holiness and the Dark Night of the Soul

That relational maturity can take a lifetime to learn and even well-known spiritual leaders may experience the dark night of the soul, the final step in their relational maturity where they, like Christ in the garden, against all odds, in the face of a silent heaven, choose to obey even when they feel abandoned by God.

In the case of Christ, he was abandoned by God and became sin for us on the cross. In our case, we may feel abandoned by God because of our sin, our over-dependence on feelings rather than faith, or because God has withdrawn his obvious favor to teach us the priority of love over benefits.

So even well-established leaders can experience these relational challenges in their walk with God, but it is precisely because they have learned the maturity of walking in the Spirit and desiring after God, that God leaves the hardest and most difficult issue of the dark night of the soul until last.

It is important to say also that God’s relational question in our rebellion and sin is black and white but our ability to respond quickly and decisively in humble confession, repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation will grow over time as we face and overcome this question of the heart which underlies our sin and rebellion.

So, even here, to talk of maturity is more difficult than to talk about growth in maturity. Still, there seems to be a place that we all get to in our relationships where the tide has turned, where we are truly together together, with God where it isn’t just a matter of duty or obedience but of desire and love. That is just as true in marriage as in any other relationship we have.

Separating the relational process from the character process seems to make good sense to me, even though they are related and integrated. Both of these processes are inner realities and must be worked out in the outer realities of the mastery of our bodies and our life ministry to others.

But, still, we cannot deny the priority of the relationship when we walk with God. Holiness is relational. We are “set apart” for a purpose, to be the bridegroom of Christ and to join God in his great rescue operation using the ministry of reconciliation. Holiness is not perfection any more than marriage has to be perfect, but it does have to be real, honest, and true. The rest will come as we grow in that relationship and become spiritually mature.

So, if holiness is relational, it involves us. Jesus may be the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2 NIV), but how does he go about it? What is the role that we play? What is the process that makes us mature in Christ? What does it mean to “walk in the Spirit?” All of these questions make up the Holiness Project and our role in it. Let’s explore it together.