Some Thoughts on Personal Holiness

I ran across this today, and I thought it was great! Right on time, as always.


by A.W. Tozer

"Were some watcher or holy one from the bright world above to come among us for a time with the power to diagnose the spiritual ills of church people, there is one entry which I am quite sure would appear on the vast majority of his reports: Definite evidence of chronic spiritual lassitude; level of moral enthusiasm extremely low.



Holy is the way God is. To be holy he does not conform to a standard. He is that standard. He is absolutely holy with an infinite, incomprehensible fullness of purity that is incapable of being other than it is. Because he is holy, all his attributes are holy; that is, whatever we think of as belonging to God must be thought of as holy.



The holy man is not one who cannot sin. A holy man is one who will not sin.



The true Christian ideal is not to be happy but to be holy.



The whole purpose of God in redemption is to make us holy and to restore us to the image of God. To accomplish this He disengages us from earthly ambitions and draws us away from the cheap and unworthy prizes that worldly men set their hearts upon.

The true Christian ideal is not to be happy but to be holy.

No man should desire to be happy who is not at the same time holy. He should spend his efforts in seeking to know and do the will of God, leaving to Christ the matter of how happy he shall be.

Go to God and have an understanding. Tell Him that it is your desire to be holy at any cost and then ask Him never to give you more happiness than holiness. When your holiness becomes tarnished, let your joy become dim. And ask Him to make you holy whether you are happy or not. Be assured that in the end you will be as happy as you are holy; but for the time being let your whole ambition be to serve God and be Christlike.

. . . although God wants His people to be holy as He is holy, He does not deal with us according to the degree of our holiness but according to the abundance of His mercy. Honesty requires us to admit this.

You cannot study the Bible diligently and earnestly without being struck by an obvious fact—the whole matter of personal holiness is highly important to God!



I cannot think of even one lonely passage in the New Testament which speaks of Christ’s revelation, manifestation, appearing or coming that is not directly linked with moral conduct, faith and spiritual holiness.



Christ calls men to carry a cross; we call them to have fun in His name. He calls them to forsake the world; we assure them that if they but accept Jesus the world is their oyster. He calls them to suffer; we call them to enjoy all the bourgeois comforts modern civilization affords...He calls them to holiness; we call them to a cheap and tawdry happiness that would have been rejected with scorn by the least of the Stoic philosophers.



We have the blessed Holy Spirit present, and we are treating Him as if He were not present at all. We resist Him, disobey Him, quench Him and compromise with our hearts. We hear a sermon about Him and determine to learn more and do something about it. Our conviction wears off, and soon we go back to the same old dead level we were in before. We resist the blessed Comforter. He has come to comfort. He has come to teach. He is the Spirit of instruction. He has come to bring light for He is the Spirit of light. He comes to bring purity for He is the Spirit of holiness. He comes to bring power for He is the Spirit of power...We would like to be full of the Spirit and yet go on and do as we please. The Holy Spirit who inspired the Scriptures will expect obedience to the Scriptures, and if we do not obey the Scriptures, we will quench Him. This Spirit will have obedience—but people do not want to obey the Lord. Everyone is as full as he wants to be. Everyone has as much of God as he desires to have. There is a fugitive impulse that comes to us, in spite of what we ask for when we pray in public, or even in private. We want the thrill of being full, but we don’t want to meet the conditions. We just don’t want to be filled badly enough to be filled...If there is anything in your life more demanding than your longing after God, then you will never be a Spirit-filled Christian. I have met Christians who have been wanting to be filled, in a vague sort of way, for many years. The reason they have not been filled with the Spirit is because they have other things they want more. God does not come rushing into a human heart unless He knows that He is the answer and fulfillment to the greatest, most overpowering desire of that life.



We Christians must stop apologizing for our moral position and start making our voices heard, exposing sin as the enemy of the human race and setting forth righteousness and true holiness as the only worthy pursuits for moral beings."


Amen!

Military Monday

All things military related seem to be attacking me at once, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to ramble a little about the happenings at our little BOnP (Base of non-Preference). =)

If you caught my last post, you know that my husband is now eligible to retire. And to answer the $1,000,000 question, no he has no immediate plans of retiring. He was promoted in December of '08 and so in order to retire at his current rank he needs to stay in until at least December '10. For now that is the plan, and he may possibly stay in longer. It just depends on where we are and how the Lord directs.

My BOnP reference earlier was a joke...sort of. To be totally honest, we had no intentions of ever coming here. None. But the Lord had other plans, and we understand that. I have learned to be content here.

In other news--hubby got word yesterday that a deployment is in our not so distant future- this winter sometime. I am in no way thrilled about this, but it has been 7 years since his last real deployment. Yes, 7 years! So while I don't want to sound like I am happy about it, I do understand that it is our turn. I'm sure as the date gets closer, I will probably not have such a positive outlook. I am going to start praying now that the Lord would sustain me and that I will rely fully on Him for strength to get through it. I am not good with deployments at all.

(This little tidbit doesn't really have much to do with the military other than it happened on base.) Tonight as I was driving around the flight line to take hubby his lunch, I ran over not less that 200 frogs...just on the way to his shop. I have never seen so many frogs at once in all my life. They were everywhere! It looked like a plague. There were also several dozen small white snakes in the road. I really have never seen anything like it. Gross!

Well, I guess that ends my ramblings for today. I started writing this around lunch time and it is now after 10:00. I need to get the house in order and get to bed...if I can. Hubby is on nights and I have no one to snuggle with.

The Day They All Dream About

20 years ago today my Airman entered boot camp. That makes him officially eligible to retire. Woohoo! What an accomplishment. We are so very proud of our hero!

Congratulations honey! Thank you for all your hard work and sacrifice, both for our country and our family.

Jackson's Mystery Rash

Jackson has developed some sort of rash all over his tiny little body. I first noticed it last night and then this morning it had spread and gotten more noticeable. After reading about different rashes in children and their causes on the internet last night, my inner hypochondriac came out and I was thoroughly convinced that it was purpura--which is linked to meningitis and leukemia. Needless to say I did not sleep well last night and was awake and on the phone with the pediatric clinic on base first thing this morning.

The clinic was less than reassuring with their medical advice---Benadryl every 6 hours for 48 hours and then they will see him. So today we are home, resting and waiting. Hoping and praying. Loving and kissing. Holding and rocking.

Here are some pictures of the rash. I had a hard time getting pictures of it. He was squirmy and for some reason the rash doesn't look nearly as dramatic in the pictures as it does in person.

And here are two others of him just being cute. I love how cute that pacifier looks in his mouth. He saw it in a drawer and wanted it. It lasted about as long as it took for me to snap the pictures. We are a No Paci house. =)

P.S.- How do y'all like the new floors?

Remembering 9/11/2001

"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." 2 Chronicles 7:14

A Day At The Park

Today the boys and I spent the day exploring a new town and playing at a nice park there.

My little pilot.

My "Tiger"

Let's race!

Silly Face

Tyler kept saying he wanted to do Buzz and Woody. I finally figured out he wanted Jack in the swing with him so they could "fly" like Buzz and Woody do in Toy Story. =) It was very cute!

Late Night Photo Shoot

I told him to go to sleep or I was going to start taking pictures.

He wouldn't.

Cheese. =)

Okay Mom, that's enough. I'll go to sleep now.