Holiness Is Power

1 Peter 1:15 But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation;

16 Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.

1 Peter 2:5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:

The movie premiered last night was called “Pure and Holy.” It followed Todd White walking through areas of France, Germany and the Netherlands leading people to Christ and being used of God to heal people.

One man he stopped said he had just prayed the night before abut his spiritual condition and here you are. One lady had prayed that God would send someone to her that day to help her with her grief over the loss of a child and there was Todd.

He spoke through the movie about how the Church has missed the concept of holiness. As one friend of mine put it, we are in the sin repent club constantly sinning and repenting instead of walking in holiness being holy as He is holy.

We are supposed to be different than the world in our speech, habits, attire and everything else in life. We do not watch what the world watches or listen to their music or strive to be like worldly celebrities. We do not adapt to their ways to win them. We are called to come out from them and be separate.

We do not even have the appearance of evil. That word in the original means any form of evil. Yet, there is a form of evil in our appearance. One of the things that god Aachen in trouble was a Babylonian garment. Babylon has always been used to represent the world. Wearing worldly styles is a form of evil because it implies condoning what is often immoral/indecent apparel for women or rebellion/machoism and now effeminate apparel for men. I know I will upset some with this, but It is true.

The apparel industry is not inclined to godliness. They have other agendas. Why do people pay crazy prices for jeans that even a poor person in my day would have thrown away or only wore to work in the barn? Fads. Fads that change all the time making you waste money on junk rather than modest and durable attire.

If the lyrics of your music are not godly it matters not what genre it is. I forget which one but one of the classic musicians wrote some vulgar and twisted songs.

If your beverages or other substances can cause you to lose control or open you up to demonic suggestions or possession then they need to go. We can play with Scripture, but you will lose and the devil will laugh as you go to jail for DUI, die before your time from cancer or find yourself with an STD or pregnancy.

Our holy days should be holy and based on accurate interpretation of Scripture not replete with myths, false doctrine, greed or other worldliness. The early Church would not fast on the same day as the pagans, but we incorporate paganism in our holy days.

That was often the error of Israel in the OT. They mixed practices of the pagans around them into the worship of Jehovah and paid dearly for it. It was one of the downfalls of the Roman Catholic Church that resulted from the first attempt of seeker church adapting pagan practices to bring the pagans in and they came but were not regenerated filling the system with tares. Evangelicals have done the same and one of the early promoters of seeker church has said that it did not work.

If we want to see God’s power and Acts miracles we need to rediscover holiness. Yes, we can mess that up and become legalists. That is the one side of the scale and as some call it “hyper-grace” is the other end of the scale. The goal is to find God’s balance. On a scale of one to ten it is probably an 8. Not the extremes of 1 or 10 and not a milquetoast middle of the road 5.

There is power in the blood and grace flowed free, but both were to unleash the power of freedom in holiness by the Holy Ghost. The World needs to see a holy Church standing apart and calling them out to Christ not a commingled, polluted, comprised Church trying to impress them. We need a purging church movement then we will emerge as the Bride of Christ He meant for us to be.