We are saved by grace alone. No great amount of sin in your life will keep you from attaining holiness in Jesus Christ. Furthermore, no great amount of \u201cgood deeds\u201d in your life will grant you holiness. It is only acquired by God\u2019s grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Through faith, His righteousness becomes our righteousness, His holiness \u2013 our holiness. We will battle temptation every day. Our flesh, the world, and the devil are our constant adversaries. They fight for control of our choices in an attempt to wrestle us away from devotion to our Lord. Yet, through God\u2019s grace He provides deliverance through faith. After we have accepted Christ as Lord and Savior, He has prepared good deeds in advance for us to complete. It is our pursuit for holiness. <\/p>\n
Even though we are aware of our imperfection, our unrighteousness, our ungodliness, God sees us as His saints, His priests, His children through the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. \u201cAnd you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple. What’s more, you are his holy priests. Through the mediation of Jesus Christ, you offer spiritual sacrifices that please God.\u201d<\/i> (1 Peter 2:5 NLT) Our pursuit of holiness will continue to increase our understanding of freedom through Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n
Constant prayer is practiced by every saint in the pursuit of holiness. Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.<\/i> (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 NIV) This is God\u2019s will for us! Another way to look at this might be to say , that if we are not joyful, if we don\u2019t stay in continuous prayer, if we don\u2019t give God thanks in all circumstances — we are not in our Father\u2019s will. Complaining is not holiness. Holiness requires the sinner to identify his\/her unworthiness and their captivity to sin, the world, their flesh, and Satan.
\nHoliness requires an outpouring of one\u2019s heart in gratitude to the Father of Lights for all good and perfect things. <\/p>\n
In the pursuit of holiness we recognize our constant critical need for freedom, deliverance and salvation through our Savior, Jesus Christ. In our pursuit of holiness we will grow in our amazement at the mystery of God\u2019s grace and love in Jesus Christ. Holiness helps us understand the futility of words to describe God\u2019s greatness and His limitless worth to us; and, our need to be still to know Him. Holiness requires us to be \u201cdaily cross-bearers\u201d following Jesus in complete obedience. In our pursuit of holiness we will always remain in awesome fear of His power and majesty.<\/p>\n
The more I write and think about holiness, the more I understand how much I don\u2019t know about it. It is a mystery to me that Christ would impart His righteousness to me, the chief of all sinners. Because He was the Lamb of God, because of He was despised and rejected, because He was tortured and crucified, I can live my life in joy without sinful remorse. I can live in freedom from the sin that once ensnared me. I can live without fear from Satan that even now prowls about looking to devour me. I can live in hope of the unimaginable life that is coming with my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We are saved by grace alone. No great amount of sin in your life will keep you from attaining holiness in Jesus Christ. Furthermore, no great amount of \u201cgood deeds\u201d in your life will grant you holiness. It is only acquired by God\u2019s grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Through faith, His righteousness becomes our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-worship"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfZYJd-4R","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sing2jesus.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sing2jesus.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sing2jesus.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sing2jesus.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sing2jesus.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=301"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sing2jesus.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":302,"href":"https:\/\/sing2jesus.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions\/302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sing2jesus.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sing2jesus.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sing2jesus.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}