Believers are called to holy living. This is the clear teaching of the Bible.
Throughout this next blog series, we want to consider the question:
“How then does the believer cultivate holiness?”
The first way is to know and love Scripture. We should also consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to Christ. Today we will discuss the third:
Strive for daily repentance before God.
Never rise above the publican’s petition, “God be merciful to me a sinner” (Luke 18:13). Remember Luther’s advice that God would have His people exercise “lifelong repentance.”
Furthermore, believe that Christ is mighty to preserve you alive by His Spirit.
You live through union with Christ, therefore live unto His righteousness. His righteousness is greater than your unrighteousness. His Saviorhood is greater than your sinfulness. His Spirit is within you.
1 John 4:4, “Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.”
Do not despair. You are strong in Him, alive in Him, and victorious in Him. Satan may win many skirmishes, but the war is yours, the victory is yours (1 Cor. 15:57; Rom. 8:37). In Christ, the optimism of divine grace reigns over the pessimism of human nature.
Mark Hayes says
June 24, 2013 at 3:52 pmHallelujah. I give thanks to our Father for these words from you Dave.
Your message has written
“How then does the believer cultivate holiness?” – ‘The first way is to know and love Scripture.’
I know a man whose Grandmother oft used to bring forth a word from her mouth that sounded to this man, then a young youth, rather different. The man’s grandmother oft spoke these words while the man’s family were sitting around the dining room table.
The words spoken from her mouth seemed eloquent, but were not in the manner or wisdom men would usually speak, and the man as a youth did not really comprehend them.
Some who heard her speak these words would chuckle under their breath but to the man’s grandmother the words spoken appeared to the man to be her treasure.
Years later this same man was awoken during the mid night hours to a vision before his eyes. On as if a plain sheet of white paper set before him, the words ‘Psalms 107’ appeared.
He arose to read from the bible near his bed this word that had appeared.
Psalms 107:1-3 writes
Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for [He is] good! For His mercy [endures] forever.
Let the redeemed of the LORD say [so], Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy,
And gathered out of the lands, From the east and from the west, From the north and from the south.
And then from verse Psalms 107:10-14 the man saw written the exact counsel of the Lord to him describing his recent circumstance.
Psalms 107:10-14
Those who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, Bound in affliction and irons–
Because they rebelled against the words of God, And despised the counsel of the Most High,
Therefore He brought down their heart with labor; They fell down, and [there was] none to help.
Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, [And] He saved them out of their distresses.
He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, And broke their chains in pieces.
Dave writes
‘Satan may win many skirmishes, but the war is yours, the victory is yours”You are strong in Him, alive in Him, and victorious in Him’
Truly the man I know says that by the love of God found in Jesus Christ we have overcome and are victorious.
Truly the man I know now declares that to “know and love Scripture” as his grandmother had known and loved it, and as he has grown now to know and love, such is victorious living.
This man’s daily prayer of repentance is “I abide in Jesus Christ. Purify me dear Father from any unrighteousness, that I may know the sufficiency of God in Jesus Christ, the fullness of God in Jesus Christ who abides in me.”
As the Psalmist declares in Psalms 107:15
“Oh, that [men] would give thanks to the LORD [for] His goodness, And [for] His wonderful works to the children of men!”
Amen
In Christ
Mark H NZ
Tess says
June 24, 2013 at 5:47 pmMark,
That reminds me of my grandmother. She was the most loving person I have ever known. If ever an issue arose about the sin of someone else she would always defend the person and not the deed and then bring the conversation to herself, her need for forgiveness and God’s mercies and theirs and our need to love and forgive as Christ did. Not once in all my life did I ever hear her say an unkind word.
She was a wonderful living testament to God and His love and she was so dear to everyone who ever knew her. I miss her but can always hear her sweet words in my heart when I need them. She loved the sinner and hated the sin and had such a wonderful way of bringing others into a loving relationship with God and with others.
Thanks for your post.
Your Sis-In-Christ
Tess
katherine constantino says
June 28, 2013 at 12:30 amThere is victory in Jesus,. Thank God for reminding me.:)