Everyday holiness…
Jun 16th, 2009 by ljkim
I used to be the sole-pastor for a church filled with college students. Aside from all the fun and energy, and the miracles God works in people’s hearts, I can sum up the day to day experience in one word: DRAMA. There was LOTS of drama. Fortunately most of it didn’t involve me. The most common situation was when person “A” disliked person “B”. Sometimes they were roommates, sometimes BFF’s, sometimes bf/gf’s… Fortunately I’m pretty good at keeping other people’s stories to myself… But what was surprising to me was that these weren’t just interpersonal disputes, almost all of them turned out to be about holiness…
Now you probably think of “holy” as an adjective to describe the hat the pope wears, or people like Mother Theresa. But holiness in the Bible really means “growing up” to become the people we were meant to be: strong, truthful, forgiving, faithful, loving, balanced… Every one of those dramatic conflicts had to do with each person’s sanctification, (the process by which they were becoming holy, strong, truthful, faithful, etc). Will you be kind to a friend who is not being kind? Will you forgive as you have been forgiven? Or will you do the natural thing and act like a child? Most people are like me and do a little bit of both… We act like children but struggle to try and do something more, to forgive, to support people, to remain loyal, to not talk-behind people’s back’s, to not curse people in our hearts, etc.
There was a time that I thought it was okay to be cold or cut people off or distance myself emotionally as long as I wasn’t “breaking any commandments.” But this is impossible. The main command in the Bible is to LOVE your neighbor, to love one another as you love yourself… What that means is God is calling us holiness almost everyday!
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