Be Holy - 1 Peter 1:14-16 Series

While he was in rebellion I was grieved and not pleased. At what point do I go back to being pleased with him instead of grieved? Does he have to drive all the way to the church before I am pleased? No. As soon as he repents and then turns the car around, I am pleased. Even though we are still miles away from where we should be, I am already pleased just because he has started moving in the right direction. If you are miles and miles away from where you should be in your character, if you are light years away from where you need to be, you are not light years away from being able to please God. You are never more than 180 degrees away from pleasing God.

If the command to be holy in all you do hits you as condemning or discouraging or paralyzing, remind yourself that all it would take for you to be thoroughly pleasing to God right now at this moment would be to just repent of your sin, turn around, and take the first step in the direction of His calling.

What area of unholiness can you see in your life right now? What steps could you take in the direction of holiness? Maybe deep down you know that getting involved in a prayer group would be very likely to improve your walk with the Lord. So what would it take for you to please God right here and now in this moment? You could write that on your prayer card right now, “I want to join a prayer group.”

“But I don’t want to do that because I know what’s going to happen. Next Sunday will come and I won’t have the resolve to follow through, and I’ll just flake out once again. I know I won’t be able to be faithful, so I might as well not even start.”

The grace you need to follow through next Sunday will come next Sunday. You do not need to worry about that now. Do not ever refuse to do what is right today because you are assuming God will not provide enough grace tomorrow to enable you to be faithful. God can handle tomorrow; you are only responsible for today.

Maybe you have an unreconciled relationship; you are at odds with someone in the body, and you know that the Christ-like thing to do would be to make another effort to reconcile, but you have just been putting it off. You could please God right now by jotting down when you are going to make that effort, and committing to it.

Maybe you know you could make much greater progress toward holiness if you started spending time every day in God’s Word and in prayer. Maybe you are so caught up in fear about your finances that you have stopped worshipping God through your tithe, and that lack of trust in Him is getting in the way of intimacy with Him. And you know exactly what you need to do. Maybe you are stumbling again and again in some really embarrassing area, and you know you could have better success if you got some help, but you just want to keep dealing with it on your own – even though that clearly is not working. Does God require total victory in that area before He will be pleased with you? No, just turn the car around. Just take the first step in the direction of holiness, and you will be doing what Peter is calling us to do when he says, “Be holy in everything.” Any time Scripture commands a destination, you are obeying that command as soon as you take the first step in that direction.