“..so that He may establish your hearts without blame in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints.”

-1 Thess. 3:13

Notes:

One Sunday morning, an old, shabbily dressed man happened to be walking through an elegant suburb when he spotted a huge, beautiful church.
The well-dressed congregation was unnerved by his appearance. As he was leaving the service, the pastor told the old man, “Before you come back again, please pray and ask God what He thinks would be the proper clothes for worshipping in this church.”  The next Sunday the old man returned to the church in the same shabby clothes. After the service, the pastor again asked him whether or not he had talked to God about the appropriate attire for church.”I did talk to God,” the old man replied. “He told me that He wouldn’t have any idea what was appropriate attire for worshipping in your church. He said He’s never been in here before.”

When it comes to holiness, the heart of the matter is the matter of the heart.  We can often labor under the burdensome illusion that if we abstain from certain carnal sins then we are holy, and good to go.  However, the Pharisees in Jesus’ day were known for following the outward rituals and customs of the law (in our day it would be like not watching certain movies, not wearing certain types of clothes, not going certain places, etc.), while neglecting the inward transformation and circumcision of their hearts.  Jesus described them as whitewashed tombs, which were clean and white on the outside, but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones. The outward will eventually come, but in order to be holy as God desires, the inward cleansing and transformation of the heart must take place first. 

Willing to Take the Challenge?

The solution to “outward religious holiness” is to be tender and sensitive toward the Spirit of Christ, yielding to His changes and inner work, and developing a heart each day to love God and love others.  The great promise of God is that He will make us holy, and not ourselves, as we grow in the grace and the knowledge of Christ.  A heard a story once that sums it up well.

 A little girl, on a bright sunny day, was walking through a field of wildflowers when she found one that was closed. She tried to open it but couldn’t.  She then brought it to her daddy and asked why she couldn’t open it up. She suddenly interrupted herself, and answered her own question. “Oh, I know why, because God opens things from the inside out!”