A young mother rises early on Sunday morning to help her family get ready to go to church. She irons a dress shirt for her young son, lays out his slacks and selects a matching clip on tie for him to wear. When her little boy is completely dressed, with his hair combed neatly and his face and neck washed clean, she tells him, “Now don’t get dirty before church!” At this point we could describe the boy as holy (figuratively speaking). He has been sanctified and cleansed by his mother. He’s been prepared for something special. Now it’s his responsibility to stay that way. He may accidentally get a smudge on his cheek or a spot on his shirt before time for church, but his mother will be there with a wet wash cloth or a stick of Tide-To-Go to keep him spotless. What he must NOT do is purposely go outside and play in the mud.
The illustration is imperfect, I realize, but I hope you see the spiritual application. Jesus has thoroughly cleansed us by His blood, and He wants us to stay clean! His desire is to present us “holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight,” but we are responsible to “continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast” (Col. 1:22-23).
Staying clean is our foremost obligation because Jesus wants to take us to see His Father in heaven, and we cannot go there if we are not holy. We are told to “pursue . . . holiness, without which no one will see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14). God is holy, so we must be holy too (1 Peter 1:15-16). In fact, God is so holy that He can tolerate no uncleanness dwelling in His presence or in His home. Heaven, God’s home, is described as a “holy city” (Rev. 21:2) into which “there shall by no means enter anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie” (Rev. 21:27).
And so, we make the effort to “cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 7:1). “For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness” (1 Thess. 4:7).
So, what do you think? Does the word holy describe you and me? It certainly described Christians in the New Testament who were headed for heaven. They are called “holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling” in Hebrews 3:1. They are called “the elect of God, holy and beloved” in Colossians 3:12.
I am concerned that we who are Christians are not concerned nearly enough about being holy. We allow the world to influence us, to alter our thoughts, our words, and our actions. We become sullied with the grime of our culture, and some have even gone off to play in the mud. We’ve lost the notion that our religion is to define our character. We’ve forgotten that “pure and undefiled religion is,” among other things, “to keep oneself unspotted from the world” (James 1:27).
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12:1).
