To many, many Christians this verse is something to strive after: “Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy” (
Really?
So many things are running around my mind these days. Hurting students. Students who find church to be irrelevant. Parents who are struggling. People who want good things and only good things; and fear the daily grind of living in a fallen, broken world with broken people. Students who refuse to engage God. Students who once were excited about God and now won’t have anything to do with Him. Why? What happened?
Could it be that a person is aware enough to understand the totality of Scripture teaches that mankind is hopelessly lost; cannot work himself out of his depravity; that a person finally understands the impossibility of the verse from Leviticus? Could it be that a person works to the point of trying to please everyone—even God—to the point of utter emotional and spiritual exhaustion?
Compare and contrast
Is it true? You know there is no one righteous? No one who seeks God? All have turned away? No one that does good? Is it true? Some will say that’s not true. I do many good things. I feed the poor. I don’t love everyone, especially those who are not good, but I try. I go to church. I take care of my family. I’m good. I can live holy, I can.
Really?
Impossible. No one can muster anything close to the holiness of God. It’s impossible. First, there are motives. What if the motive to appear good is part of why a person strives for holiness? What is that called? What about judging others? What about speaking badly about people? What about the lack of love for brothers and sisters and just plain ole people in general? Really? No one is holy and never will be holy in and of themselves period.
Maybe that’s why students have had enough? Maybe that’s why so many are done with going to church or getting involved with anything spiritual? Think about it. How can we demand in our hearts and in heads that people live holy when we know they can’t, we can’t, we don’t.
Isn’t it true? No? Now what’s that called?
The truth is this:
Scripture teaches that God pursues us first.
Scripture teaches that righteousness comes by faith.
Scripture teaches that anything that is not of faith is sin.
Scripture teaches that faith justifies.
Scripture teaches there are none righteous.
Scripture teaches that all our works are what? Filthy.
So how does one become holy?
Not by works; not by doing; not by playing a game; not by wearing Sunday clothes; not by this or that or omissions of this or that.
Then how does one get into right standing with God. How in the world?
Isn’t that the problem? I know so many who have bailed (I did, and I know why I did). However, the contradiction is not in Scripture, but in the code that most are smart enough, deep enough to understand. The code says, “Be a clone of all of us who do all this stuff that makes us so much better than everyone else.” That’s the code most people see through now.
The answer is Scripture. No one can become holy by him or herself period. Nobody. Never. It’s impossible period. People who think they can are obviously not holy. People who love to think they are superior are not being holy.
“This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of His blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance He had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—He did it to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the One who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. ‘Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith. For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law'” (
By faith one receives righteousness. It is a gift from God—all of it is from God.
Maybe that’s the stuff that drives all of us crazy—those who mandate a false spirituality through works, not the works that are a product of one’s relationship with Christ, but the works that come from faith, those from a broken and contrite heart, those due to a heart has been transformed by the Holy Spirit, those from a person who has trusted in Christ Jesus for his or her salvation, those from the great mystery of Christ in you. The works that say, “I can be holy by what I do” (i.e., “I can be holy because I dress modestly as people did in the 50s and 60s, those that say, “I am haven’t sinned as badly as those people”).
Stop striving. Being perfect on your own, by your own works, is impossible.
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (
Now where is the boasting? Tell me, can you do it really? The only thing we can do is live by faith—not faith in our works but faith in Christ. I would love for students and many adults to get this. It would change everything. By the way, try doing student ministry knowing the above stuff. I have watched through the years many refusing trust by faith for their salvation and when life, bad choices, sin shows its head (daily), they give up. Why?
One of the hardest things about doing student ministry is that this is a truth so many don’t want to admit: that all the holiness that is believed to be holy is short-lived at best and falls short. Really. I can’t imagine how anyone thinks a holy act (if there is such a thing) does one bit outside of what God has done for a person to be in right standing with God. Without Jesus Christ, our faith placed in Him, nothing else comes close. The judges of others and what they perceive as holy or not holy is an impossibility. They are stuck in a belief system that is faulty—and sinful—as they judge others, yet believe somehow that they are holy.
So, where does this lead? Think about it. The contradiction is not in Scripture, but in the way truth is lived. If one could be holy, who needs the Savior? If there is anything to add to salvation, then the Savior was not enough. If all our works are as filthy rags, which ones aren’t? Scripture tells the truth. No one ever will be enough. That is why the Savior came, died and rose again. Anything less than faith is sin. So, how we live proves the transforming power of the great mystery of Christ in us.
By the way, did you know there are Christians who have picketed shrimpers with signs saying, “God hates shrimp,” with quotes from Leviticus? True. Interesting, because God created shrimp. Again, when people determine that being holy by requirements; the idea of perfection; the ideal of checking off boxes on their lists; the whole faith, trust and work of the cross tenets become nonsense to them. Who needs the cross? Who needs Jesus if you can do it all yourself? Maybe this generation finally has seen through the nonsense.
It really is time to get back to the high value of Scripture and forget trying to manage students’ behavior through guilt, shame and the impossibility of the human view of holy living.
