Holiness
Defining Holiness – Part I

Scripture Reading: 1 Peter 1:13-25

Key Verse: Hebrews 12:14
Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.

The goal of this month’s devotional is to make every believer “Kingdom Fit”, so that when Jesus does return, He will be well pleased with us as we go up with Him and live with God forever!

So far this month we have examined the scriptures and figured out that to be Kingdom Fit, we must see our daily spiritual disciplines as going into God’s “gym”. Like Planet Fitness, we sign up for God’s gym knowing there will be times of challenge and pain, as God works in us to make us what He wants us to be.

We also examined how forgiving those who hurt us is an absolute requirement for God to forgive us. We must become forgiving people. Forgiveness is essential to being Kingdom Fit.

Last week we studied scriptures about compassion. Because God has been so compassionate to us, we want to pass compassion on to those around us. Jesus taught compassion, showed compassion, and even died with compassion on His lips asking God not to hold his death against His crucifiers. Compassion is another critical element to being Kingdom Fit.

Today, we start with the fourth critical element of being Kingdom Fit: holiness.

To understand the importance of God’s people being holy, read our Key Verse for today: “…without holiness no one will see the Lord”. Do you see that holiness is a vital part of being Kingdom Fit?

The reason we Christ-followers often ignore the subject of holiness is that none of us “feel” holy! I have never talked to a faithful church attender that readily declared that they live a holy life. I am convinced that the reason for that is that we do not understand the Biblical definition of “holy”. So that is our first task in this week’s devotional.

The common understanding holiness is a person who is perfect in all their ways. Of course, no one can be holy with that definition.

We use the phrase “holier than thou” as a negative critique of someone who has an attitude of moral superiority. We do not want to come off like that to people around us, so we often simply ignore the idea of being holy.

The Biblical truth is that God makes every Christ-follower holy by their faith in Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, God is the only one who sees this aspect of our holiness.

(Continued)

Father, thank You for making me holy in Your sight because of Jesus in me. Help me to learn how to live this holiness out in my everyday life. In Jesus’s Name I pray.