Be blessed to know you are holy.

Listen to God's Word in Leviticus 20:8. "I am the Lord, who makes you holy."

(source unknown)

  

     God's holiness is not what he does. Holy is who he is, the Holy One. He is without spot or blemish. His eyes are too pure to look on sin. Yet his plan of redemption called for Jesus to take our sins on himself and die to make us holy in him. We cannot make ourselves holy, no matter how hard we try or how perfectly we live. Our perfection is not holiness. Jesus was the only perfect one. The Hebrew word qadhash implies being pure, devoted to God, set apart for a special task or the worship of God.

For that definition we qualify, for God has chosen us and set us apart for a special purpose in life and to worship Him.  Jesus makes us pure and calls us to devotion.  Our response to this determines how much we get to enjoy who God is and what he has done on our behalf.  From our God-given position we can live the life we were created for.

 

      Beloved one, be blessed with knowing your holy Father. Be blessed with knowing how the holiness of Jesus is counted to your credit in his death on the cross. Nothing you ever do can make him love you less or love you more. Be free from your perfectionism and the perfectionism of others, because through your Father's eyes he sees you as perfect in his perfect and beloved Son. Be blessed with joy in God's holiness and your own. Our culture does not associate joy with holiness, but God says that our joyful shouting and singing is a celebration who he is!

Does it seem farfetched to also celebrate that the beauty of his holiness extends to you through Jesus Christ?  I believe that it is receiving this new position and identity that enables us to advance in holy conduct.  All the trying harder in the world gains us nothing because no matter how much we want to we can never live the life that Jesus lived, and that life is the standard.  But when all our guilt and fear is relieved by the holiness of Jesus in us, we can draw near and allow him to transform us from the inside out.

(Pipestem State Park, WV 2013)

While conduct is how we tend to judge, God looks at the heart.  When he sees a heart that trusts Jesus he is pleased.  A change of heart is a miraculous thing accomplished by the Holy Spirit.  All we have to do is give him permission and abide securely in a relationship of trust.  There may be layers of false beliefs to be removed, wounds to be healed, but a heart put into the hands of God in the Holy Spirit will be changed and the whole person will end up looking more and more like Jesus.  Don't be afraid to own the holiness that God ascribes to us.  It will lead to the transformation you have been hoping for.  That's God's promise.