The Beauty of Holiness

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in
your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all
your behavior; because it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy" (I Peter 1:14-16).

Holiness has almost become a bad word among many Christians in our time. This is usually because it is associated with movements and teachings that are legalistic in their approach to holiness. Even so, not only is holiness fundamental to true Christianity, we are exhorted in Hebrews 12:14: "Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord." Sanctification is a word that is often interchangeable with holiness, which means to be set apart, purified, etc. As this Scripture declares, we must be holy if we expect to see the Lord.

Recent studies indicate that there is no longer a measurable difference between the morality of those who claim to be born again Christians and non-Christians. Christians are now sliding into debauchery so fast that soon Christians will, when measured as a whole, be less moral, and have less integrity than unbelievers! What is even more shocking is that there are not alarms being sounded from every pulpit and meeting place in the land!

There are now grounds to justify calling Christians hypocrites. A hypocrite is someone who claims to believe or do one thing, but does another. Let us also not forget that Jesus Himself reserved His most fierce denunciations for hypocrites. If we are going to church and claiming to be Christians, but are doing the things that we know the Scriptures condemn, we are the ones that He was talking about. We are the ones who are bringing shame to His most glorious name.

However, the Lord is full of grace and mercy to those who humble themselves and repent of their iniquity. Even when King Ahab, one of Israel's most evil and idolatrous kings, repented near the end of his life, the Lord immediately responded to him with mercy (see I Kings 21:20-29). If we have been caught in the snares of evil, we must run to the Lord, not away from Him. He will have mercy and help us.

The Holy Spirit, who is the personification of the holiness of God by His very name, is also the Helper. God does not require us to do anything that He will not also empower us to do by His Holy Spirit. However, we must understand that this is His name for a reason. If we want the fullness of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we too must be holy.

The true key to living a holy life is not just determining that we are going to stop doing what we know is wrong, but to simply return to our first love, God. That is why the Lord summed up the entire Law of Moses with the two commandments: to love the Lord, and to love our neighbors. If we love God, we will not worship idols or do the things that offend Him because we are the temple of His Holy Spirit. If we love our neighbors, we will not murder, steal, or even envy them. If we live a life devoted to loving God and our neighbors, we will not do wrong things, and will therefore fulfill the Law. True holiness is not motivated by fear, but love.

The true holiness to which the church is called is not that of a bride who is afraid that if she is not perfect her bridegroom will punish her. True holiness is that of a bride who is so passionately in love with her Bridegroom that she wants to be perfect for Him in every way. Therefore, the first step in recovering any spiritual ground that we have lost by falling into sin is to pray for God to have mercy on us and restore to us our first love. To then stay on the path is a simple devotion to growing in love for Him and our neighbors.

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The Great Ministry

Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation (II Corinthians 5:18-19).

The ministry of reconciliation is a ministry that is given to every Christian. Once we have been reconciled to God through the cross, it is our basic calling to help reconcile others to Him. The primary way that we do this is through the proof of a life that is reconciled to God. Just what does such a life look like?

The first thing that was lost by the Fall of man was his relationship with God. Therefore, the first thing that should be restored by redemption is our relationship with God. The Lord created man for fellowship, and our primary purpose is to fellowship with Him. If there was a way to measure the degree to which redemption has worked in our lives, it would be by how close our relationship is with God. If we walk with God, we will become like Him, as we are told in II Corinthians 3:18:

But we all, with an unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

We cannot walk with God without beholding His glory. If we behold His glory we will be transformed into His same image. We can therefore ask ourselves: Are we becoming more Christ-like? Are we growing in the fruit of the Spirit? Are we growing in the gifts of the Spirit? All the gifts are aspects of Him. Is this transformation noticeable to others? If so, they too will be compelled to be reconciled to God. When Jesus is lifted up, all men will be drawn to Him. If they are not being drawn to Him through us then we have somehow departed from the course.

This drawing to the Lord can be for Christians as well as non-Christians. There are many who have "come to Jesus" but all that they ever received was a religion. The Lord did not save us so that we could become members of a church. That is one of the benefits, and true church life should be one of the most fulfilling things that we can do on this earth, but we must have a greater vision than that. We do not serve God by serving the church, we serve God as members of the church. There is a difference. If we try to serve God by serving the church, it becomes an end in itself. As the Shulamite maid said to her beloved in the Song of Solomon 1:7:

"Tell me, O you whom my soul loves, where do you pasture your flock, where do you make it lie down at noon? For why should I be like one who veils herself beside the flocks of your companions?"

When we are only content to be in someone else=s flock, instead of developing our own relationships with Him, we veil ourselves. Then we will not be changed into His image, but rather someone else=s. This is why we are told that we must behold the Lord "with an unveiled face" (see II Corinthians 3:18) in order to be changed into His image. There are many veils Christians can put on that distort His image causing them to be changed into a distorted image of Him. One of those veils can be the church itself.

We cannot be content to have a relationship with the Lord through anyone else, or through the church. The Lord does not have any grandchildren. We are all first generation sons and daughters to Him. Ministers are friends of the Bridegroom who are called to help prepare the bride for Him.

When there is a spiritual intimacy between the Lord and His church, she will bear fruit and souls will be born into the kingdom. How would you feel if all of your children looked like your best friend? Why is it that so many Christians are conformed to the image of their church, denomination, or movement, rather than into the image of Christ Himself? It is because they are more focused on these than on Him. They are being changed into the image of what they are beholding.

When the church becomes what she is called to be, there will be nothing we want to do more in this world than go to church meetings. This is because we will be coming together to serve the Lord, and to behold His glory. There is no one in the universe more interesting than God. Just as the highest calling of the priesthood in the Old Testament was to minister to the Lord, the highest calling that we can have is to minister to Him. Ministry to the people was a secondary calling. It is still important, but not as important as the ministry to the Lord.

If we do not draw near to Him we will be little more than a form of religion to minister to people. Our goal should be to stay so close to Him that His glory is reflected from us like it was Moses. People knew when Moses had been with the Lord. Do they know when we have been with Him? It should be said of us as it was the Lord=s first century disciples in Acts 4:13:

Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John, and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were marveling, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus.

When we have been with Jesus we too will cause men to marvel. When the church again gives her highest devotion to drawing near to the Lord, she will be changed into His image, and the whole world will marvel.

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The High Calling of God

For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have
been created by Him and for Him (Colossians 1:16).

This Scripture makes it clear that we were created by the Son and for the Son. This is carried a little further in Romans 8:29:

For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren.

By this we must ask one of the ultimate questions: Would Jesus have come to the earth if there had not been a Fall? I think so, because as glorious as the redemption of the cross is, the Lord made it clear that He came to do more than just redeem the earth—He came to begin a new creation, which we become a part of after our redemption. Consider Ephesians 1:3-4:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him, in love.

We were known by the Lord before the foundation of the world, and He was crucified before the foundation of the world. The Lord knew the end from the beginning, and He knew that man would fall and require redemption. But there was also a higher purpose for man in God=s heart before He created him. He obviously had the new creation in His heart as well as the redemption of the former one.

This new creation was the intention for man to ascend from the natural realm to the heavenly nature. Man was to be the bridge between the natural creation and the heavenly, or spiritual, realm. Through the Holy Spirit we have this treasure in earthly vessels, but we are called to take on the nature of the spiritual realm. When we are born again by the Spirit we actually become a new species. We walk the earth, but by the Spirit we can now dwell in the heavenly places with Christ.

Even if there had not been a transgression, it was always the Lord's intention for man to partake of a heavenly calling and be united with Him in a special way through His Son. When we are born we are just beginning life; when we are born again we are just beginning the process of spiritual maturity. Our goal is to be like the Lord, and do the works that He did. He was the first born of many brethren. He came to redeem us, but also to show us how to live in the new creation nature. That nature has authority over the things that were the result of the fall, such as sickness, and the host of hell that has inhabited the earth through the gate of hell opened by the fall.

Again, this is in no way to belittle the glory of the redemption that we have through the cross, as it will always be the centerpiece of our very comprehension of the glory and nature of God. The cross is the only door through which we may enter the purposes of God. However, we must also realize that our purpose is more than just being forgiven of our sins, as great as that may be, or even to be returned to our intended state before the fall, as glorious as that may be. Redemption is a gift of unfathomable value, but we must press on to the attaining of our ultimate purpose—to walk in the nature of the new creation. When we do, we will be walking as Jesus walked, which is the calling of every Christian.

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Witnessing to Principalities and Powers

To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God, who created all things; in order that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places (Ephesians 3:8-9).

How does the church make known the wisdom of God to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places? First, we must understand the boast that Satan maintains before the throne of God.

When the Lord was about to destroy Israel in the wilderness, Moses interceded by reminding the Lord that if He destroyed Israel now the whole world would say that the Lord had the power to bring Israel out of Egypt, but He did not have the power to bring them into the Promised Land (see Numbers 14:13-16). Satan maintains a similar accusation against God concerning the church. He maintains that the Lord can forgive us for our sins, but He does not have the power to deliver us from our sinful nature, which is, of course, the work of Satan. In this way he maintains that his evil power is stronger than the Lord=s because he controls mankind, even redeemed mankind. However, as we are told in Ephesians 5:25-27:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her; that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she should be holy and blameless.

Before the end comes there will be a church that is a worthy bride for the Lamb of God. She will be without "spot or wrinkle or any such thing . . . holy and blameless." She will be a testimony to the entire host of heaven for all time that truth is stronger than lies, and the goodness of the Lord will always ultimately triumph over evil.

The bride of the first Adam lived in a perfect world, and yet she chose to sin. Before the end comes the "last Adam," (see I Corinthians 15:45) Christ, will have a bride who lives in the darkest of times, a most imperfect world, and yet chooses to obey God. She will follow the light, and walk in truth, holy and blameless before her Lord. She loves the truth more than she loves this present world, or the acceptance of this present world. Because of this, for all of the ages to come, she will be known as worthy to rule with the King of kings.

Whenever we choose to walk in the light, even when the whole world follows after darkness, we are a testimony to the power of the light. Whenever we do right, even when the whole world does wrong, we are a testimony of the power of right. That power will one day overcome all of the wrong on the earth.

In this age, the greatest testimony of the power of truth and light is that it is willing to suffer and even die rather than compromise truth and light. The testimony of those who know the truth and light will be to live for that which is eternal, not just for the temporary. The willingness to suffer for the sake of righteousness is the ultimate testimony that one has the ultimate devotion to righteousness. This witness is even marveled by the angels, who will one day cause all to bow the knee to truth, righteousness, and the grace of God—He is the Source of all truth and righteousness.

MorningStar Ministries

Truth in Preaching

Yesterday we studied about how there has been a great perversion of the Gospel in our times. The gospel has been changed from "Jesus came to save us from our sins" to "Jesus came to save us from our troubles." There is an eternal difference between the two.

The preaching of a gospel that implies that the Lord came to deliver us from our troubles often compels us to wait until a person is in desperation before we share the good news with them. Jesus did not send circumstances to lead men to Himself; He sent the Holy Spirit to convict the world of sin. If a person must be in desperate personal circumstances before coming to the Lord, then their purpose for coming to the Lord will be their circumstances rather than the conviction of their sin by the Holy Spirit. Just as those who were called by the Lord when He walked the earth were not in desperation because of personal circumstances, neither should a person's circumstances determine whether they are ready for the gospel or not.

The power of the gospel is not external. Its effectiveness is not dependent on the circumstances we are in, but on the Holy Spirit. If the Spirit convicts someone of their sins, they will bow the knee to the cross regardless of how well or poorly they are doing. If He does not convict them of their sin, and their desperate need for the cross, then they are coming to Christ on a wrong pretense, and a wrong foundation.

Whatever is built upon a weak foundation will likewise be weak. Is this not a primary reason for the weakness of Christians today? Is this not why there is such a meltdown of morality and integrity among Christians today—studies reveal that there is no discernable moral difference between Christians and non-Christians? When there is no moral difference between Christians and non-Christians then somehow Christ Himself is not in the Christian's life.

Could this reveal why Peter was sent to the Jews and Paul was sent to the Gentiles? Peter, an unlearned fisherman, was an offense to the Jews he was sent to. On the other hand, Paul, a "Pharisee of Pharisees" was an offense to the Gentiles that he was sent to. The only way that either of them could be successful in reaching those to whom they were called was to depend on the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit did not come, neither would anyone come to the Lord because of the messengers. All true messengers will be but "earthen vessels." It does not matter what the vessel looks like—what does matter is what is inside. When we have to spend too much time dressing up the vessel it is because of the weakness of what is in the vessel.

In many schools of evangelism there is a philosophy imparted that we must try to identify with those to which we are called to preach the gospel. This has caused many evangelists and missionaries to become neutralized in their work, and I have witnessed this to be the case with many who are in the field. However, if we are to be truly effective we should understand that the Lord will probably send us to those whom we cannot identify with, and who will not identify with us, just as He did with Peter and Paul. Therefore, they will not come to Jesus because of us, but because of Him! They will come because the Holy Spirit touched their lives, not us.

There is a place for studying customs and cultures for the sake of not being unnecessarily offensive to people, but if many of the missionaries I have met spent as much time studying the Lord, the truth of His Word, and seeking the anointing of the Holy Spirit, as they did studying cultures, they would certainly be reaching far more people with the true gospel.

I thank the Lord for all who are in the field devoting their lives to reaching people for the Lord. I have also met many who are doing what I consider to be true apostolic works. Even so, the very fabric of Christianity is being weakened by many, here and abroad, who are preaching a gospel of easy problem solving, or a pseudo philosophy of identificational sensitivity (This should not be confused with identificational repentance for national and cultural sins). If people do not come to Jesus because of the desperation of one thing—their sinfulness and desperate need for the forgiveness that can come from the cross of Jesus alone—then they have come by way of "different gospel" (see Galatians 1:6) and they have come to another god who is not the real Jesus.

But I am afraid, lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ (II Corinthians 11:3).

When Jesus is lifted up, on the cross, He will draw all men to Himself. If we lift up any other message for the sake of leading people to salvation, we are preaching another gospel.

True Discipleship

As Steve Thompson related in one of our leadership team meetings, there have been scientific studies made which indicate that the way that we are born can affect our whole lives. One example that was given is a procedure developed called "drug them and tug them," which was to drug the mother and tug the baby out. That generation became the one that turned to drug use in mass. Drugs are used as an escape from the pains of life.

It seems that there has also been a parallel to this in the church. When the gospel of an "easy salvation," or an easy new birth, began to be preached, Christians in mass seemed to become easily addicted to spiritual drugs, or doctrines that make you feel good while escaping reality. This message of an easy salvation was basically "come to Jesus and He will save you from all of your problems," rather than the biblical gospel that we come to Him to be saved from our sin, and to enter a life of radical discipleship and self-sacrifice.

I was given a prophetic word over twenty years ago that "the saved needed to get saved." This word continues to ring in my ears as I have watched a veritable meltdown of morality and integrity in the Western church. The weakness of Christians to stand against temptation and deception continues to grow rapidly. There is something fundamentally wrong with what is generally happening in Christianity today. When something starts going fundamentally wrong, it is the result of a problem with the foundation. We need to reexamine the very foundations of our gospel message, and the method, or lack of one, that is being used to disciple those who are coming into the church.

Because of excesses in the past with shepherding and discipleship, many believers now have a knee jerk reaction just to these words. As I have studied those movements, trying to understand what went wrong, I do believe that the methods that were devised by them promoted weakness and immaturity in believers rather than maturity. I am certainly not proposing a return to them, but there is a true discipleship, and there is a desperate need for true shepherds who will lay down their lives for the sheep, and not just try to use them for their own selfish gain. The

Apostle Paul described the gospel that he preached in I Corinthians 2:1-5:

And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,that your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.

A question that we must ask is: Are people today really being converted by the cross at all? Are we merely converting them to our denominations, to our doctrines, and to us? Are we even converting them to shallow promises of an easier life and deliverance from their problems? Following Jesus will not deliver us from all our problems— it will even give us some of the biggest ones, possibly even calling for our lives! He did not come to deliver us from our problems, but from ourselves. He did not come to change our circumstances—He came to change us! Jesus is not coming cap in hand begging men to "accept Him." He still calls men to come to Him the same way He called them when He walked this earth.

And He was saying to them all, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me (Luke 9:23).

When Jesus called His disciples, it was for total commitment. They had to be willing to leave everything to follow Him, and so do we. If He is not the Lord of all, then He is not our Lord at all. As Paul also wrote:

For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died;and He died for all, that they who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf (II Corinthians 5:14-15).

Nothing less than this is true discipleship, as the Lord Jesus Himself made clear:

"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven."Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?'"And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness'" (Matthew 7:21-23).

When we modify the message of the cross in order to make it acceptable, we destroy the power of that message to truly save. There are many "gospels" that are being preached today that have made multitudes feel safe in a spiritual condition in which their eternal lives were in jeopardy. Those who preach such a diluted gospel, and who promote such an easy Christian life, may be the biggest stumbling blocks living today. As Paul said, "For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, that the cross of Christ should not be made void" (I Corinthians 1:17-18).

Before we can preach the true message of the cross, we must be delivered from the fear of man, the compulsion to be accepted by men, or the motive of wanting to receive anything from them. As Paul declared in Galatians 1:10: "If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ."

If we are to walk with Christ we cannot be controlled by the fear of man, or the compulsion to be accepted by men. If we are controlled by these fears and desires, we will not be bond-servants of Christ. We do not preach in order to please men, but to please God. Our goal must not be to get people to respond to our message, but to the undiluted gospel of Jesus Christ. Only when we walk in this way are we truly walking under His Lordship, and only then will our message be true.

MorningStar Ministries

Possessing the Promises

And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end,that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises (Hebrews 6:11-12).

I am thankful for the great emphasis that many ministries have put on faith over the last few decades. However, as the text above declares, it will take faith and patience to inherit the promises. Isn't it strange that we have this huge "faith movement," but have never heard of a "patience movement?"

It takes two wings for an eagle to fly. If an eagle were to try to fly with just one wing he would only spin around in circles on the ground. The same is true of many people who are trying to soar spiritually on their faith, but have not added patience. These just keep going around in circles, getting more and more frustrated and kicking up a lot of dust. Any truth that we teach without the counter-balancing truth will lead us to frustration, not fulfillment. As we read of Abraham, who is called the "father of faith":

In hope against hope he believed, in order that he might become a father of many nations, according to that which had been spoken, "So shall your descendants be."And without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb;yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief, but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God,and being fully assured that what He had promised, He was able also to perform.Therefore also it was reckoned to him as righteousness (Romans 4:18-22).

True faith does not waver over time, but becomes stronger. Therefore, patience is the proof of whether one's faith is real or not.

I meet many discouraged Christians who feel that God gave them promises that have not been fulfilled. If any promise of God is not fulfilled, we can be sure that the entire fault is on our side, not His. He is always true to His word.

So what is it that we could be doing wrong? In most cases it seems that we are confusing faith with an emotion, and not joining it with patience. There are conditions with every promise of God. If we are not seeing His promises fulfilled it is because we are not meeting the conditions. Having faith is one condition—having patience is another. If we get discouraged with the passage of time while waiting for a promise to come to pass, then we do not have the true faith of God. True faith always gets stronger with the passage of time, not weaker.

Between the place where the children of Israel were given the promise of a Promised Land, and the Promised Land itself, there was a wilderness that was the exact opposite of what they were promised. The wilderness proved whether they would trust God, or doubt Him. The same is almost always true when we are given a promise. There is often a wilderness to go through to get to the fulfillment of the promise that is the opposite of what we have been promised. It is in this place that we must choose either to believe God, or give in to discouragement and self-pity.

Self-pity is one of the primary destroyers assigned to keep God's people from walking in their purposes. If we allow self-pity or discouragement into our lives, we will wander in useless circles just as the first generation of Israelites did who left Egypt. If we believe God, we will in due time attain the promise. If we believe God we will even rejoice in the wilderness, being thankful to have been called by God.

But thanks be to God, who always leads us in His triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place (II Corinthians 2:14).

MorningStar Ministries