HOLINESS DECLARATION # 7

HOLINESS   (DECLARATION 7)

                “WE BELIEVE: Holiness to the standard of living for God’s people.

                I remember as a youngster standing in church and singing the doxology, “The Lord is in His holy Temple. The Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silent. Let all the earth keep silent before Him.”  (Taken from Habakkuk 2:20)

                There was a certain sense of awe and reverence for the house of God, which translated to us kids as “Don’t run in the church, this is God’s house.” And we should have reverence for the place of worship, for we do come there with the specific purpose of meeting with God and with His people.

                As a child though, I didn’t give much thought to the fact that God was only in the house because we brought Him there. He wasn’t sitting in the church waiting for us to come to Him. He was in us and inviting us to come together to experience a group dynamic as many living temples would join together in worship to the one God.

                Throughout history our faith in God has been expressed both as individuals walking in faith as Abraham did, as well as meeting in a congregation as Israel did. But interestingly, in Israel’s time God was indeed in the Sanctuary and the Law was on stone and truth was in physical types and shadows. People literally gathered around the Sanctuary (not in it) for God was in the house, but the people were not in the house… and God was not in them, but with them.

                And yet the Sanctuary was given as a model of what the New Covenant would be after the true Lamb of God had come to ransom us from our kingdom of darkness. Everything that was in the Tabernacle of Moses is now inside of us. Therefore we are to be holy and to live holy lives because a Holy God dwells inside of us and if we have not only received Him as Savior but also received Him as Lord, then His presence in us will transform us into holy temples of the Lord.

                During the Dark Ages, the church, having become more pagan than Christian, locked God in the church (AS if Jesus had not come and reconciled us to God) and made the people come to the church and serve the church and receive forgiveness from men. They issued the sacraments as something that only the church could distribute. They did not allow personal Bible study, nor did they have the concept of a personal relationship with God.

                To this day, Pope Francis has declared loudly that an individual cannot have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, but must receive all salvation and sacrament and absolution from the church and the church alone. Yet this comes at a time when the church is so full of corruption and perversion and evil political intrigue that one wonders how you could ever find God there.

                So if you want to discover the exact polar opposite of everything that a pagan infested church would be, then you would seek out a Pentecostal group of some kind. After all, it was at Pentecost where God changed His platform from a religion of types and shadows and external laws to a platform of internal faith and a law written on the heart and the power of God coming into human lives rather than being invested only in a physical tabernacle.

                Within Christianity there are all sorts of varying degrees of understanding of relationship, from the Catholic version at one end to the Pentecostal version at the other end. And if anyone is interested in what the Bible actually says about this matter we only have to read what Paul said about it.

                “Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy and that is what you are.” 1 Cor. 3:16

                Now, as a youth, the prime meaning of this text was that we should not smoke or drink or take drugs, or hang around with people that do. This, of course is good advice and yet we need to come into a more mature understanding of what the Holy Spirit was telling us through Paul.

                To a certain degree many denominations still hold to the Catholic idea that the church must dispense all truth and so there is no end of doctrines and requirements concerning food and drink and holy days and new moons and Sabbaths, all of which Paul tells us find their substance in Christ. So when we receive and live by the Spirit of Christ we have it all.

                In the great falling away that is taking place in the Christian world today, many are abandoning the idea of personal holiness. It is what I call “false grace” where people are no longer expected to live holy lives, because God forgives and God never judges and we are okay just as we are. But strangely enough, even as the church falls away from personal holiness, they seem to be gravitating back to the Catholic idea of church. Many Protestants are therefore reaching across the gulf to join the Pope in his formation of a global religion.

                Do you get what I’m saying here? Personal holiness and the understanding that we are holy because we are personally temples of the Holy Spirit stands in direct opposition to the great falling away or apostasy that is currently taking place, and mark my word, we ARE going to face persecution for personal holiness. We cannot join forces with any so called religion that excludes Jesus Christ from our hearts and gives homage to an external antichrist dwelling once again in an external temple, demanding that we worship him to the exclusion of all that is called holy by God.

                I am convinced that the Mark of the Beast will be received by all who renounce a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. We see this being played out in Muslim countries today where Christians have been routinely beheaded because they will not renounce Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord. And one might even say that all of the inquisitions and persecutions that went on during the Dark Ages took place because individual Christians refused to relinquish their faith in Jesus Christ as a personal Savior and Lord. The church of those days was out to eliminate all such people, because the church demanded control of all religion and those who know that their bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit do not submit to such atrocities.

                So, just as predicted throughout the entire Bible, we are headed for a grand showdown between the global antichrist system, which we now know to be Luciferian to the core and those who remain faithful to a personal Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ by His Holy Spirit.

                So if you have lost your vision and sense of purpose in the grand scheme of things, you can be sure to know that personal holiness and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and obedience to Him will become the one light in the darkness that the devil will want to snuff out. Just by being temples of the Holy Spirit and living in Spirit and in Truth, it will be enough to get you killed in the coming years.

                We see the spirit of antichrist rising rapidly in the world today and we see the world’s growing hatred of holiness and those who practice it. Without saying a thing we stand as a rebuke to all satanic forces and even if we think ourselves insignificant, we are like blinding lights in a sea of darkness. Our faith and holy living sticks out like a sore thumb to all demonic forces.

                But if we are to be faithful to Jesus Christ then we must choose holiness, because we are indeed temples of the Holy Spirit. We are holy because He is holy. We are not holy apart from His presence, but we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the surpassing greatness of the power may be from God and not from ourselves. (@ Cor. 4:7) So live as a light, for we are the light in this dark world. Jesus shines forth in us as the fruit of the Spirit is manifested in our lives, for Christians are to be known by our love one for another.

               

                Jesus said: “If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it shall be done for you. By this is My Father glorified that you bear much fruit and so prove to be My disciples. Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be made full. This is My commandment, that you love one another just as I have loved you.”

                Here Jesus tells us that we are to bear the fruit of the Spirit. If we keep His commandments we will abide in this love. And His commandment is that we must love one another even as He loved us. We keep looking to the Law on tables of stone and yet, here Jesus is telling us to bear much fruit and that fruit will be manifested in our love for one another. So the big question at the end of the day is: Have we learned to love one another even as Christ has loved us? Love is the fulfillment of the Law for righteousness.

               

                Paul tells us that Christ is the end or the goal of the law for righteousness. Romans10:4. It was our tutor to lead us to Christ and once we have come to Christ, the Law has finished its work. From now on our obedience of Christ will be manifested by the fruit of the Spirit in our life, for His new Commandment is that we love one another even as He has loved us. And this is not an unrelated subject, for holiness could never be achieved from the Law. It is the Spirit and presence of Jesus living in our lies that brings true holiness. We are His temples.

                In the end it will not be enough to tell God that we didn’t kill, steal or lie or commit adultery. What God is going to be asking is “Did you love one another even as I have loved you?”

               

                More than some sort of acetic renunciation of the world, holiness is manifested in how we love one another and the judgment will not be “Did you have all the right doctrines? But, I was hungry and you fed me not. I was naked and you didn’t clothe me… in prison and you did not visit me…” (Mt. 25:31-40)     Think on these things. Holiness is expressed in genuine love.