Holiness (gasp)
Amidst all the loaded conversations on the blogs about the analogy used for holiness at youth together I discoved something! Romans 6:22!
"But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness." (NIV)
Last night when I was reading chapter 6 for my Romans class, I read that verse and my eyes were opened. We as Christians all strive for a life holiness, hence the explicit anaology used this weekend. We need to bear the fruit of Jesus, we need to "give birth" to Jesus, the reason for the intercourse with a condom and masturbation analogy. However, as I read Romans 6:22 I got that you become holy in a different way.
Because we are free from the bondage of sin, we recieve a freedom from God; instead of being bound by the chains of sin, death and hell, we are enslaved to God through, love, kindness, and forgiveness. These are the benefits that we reap, these are the benefits that leads to our holiness! Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you have to be a New Creation Christian to show love, kindness, and forgiveness, but what I am saying is that because we are slaves to God, He shows us love, kindness, and forgiveness first hand. If we have acknowledged who Jesus is, if we've confessed with our mouths the Good News then we know of God's faithfulness to us. Because of this, we have benefits that non-believers do not have. HEAVEN!
These benefits from God leads to holiness in that, we understand that God will forgive us for our stupid human nature but because of his love and kindness to us, we should want to live as pure as we can for Him.
Romans is all about the covenant that God kept to His Choosen People even though we break ours daily. Think about this, we worship gods, we have false idols, we take the Lords name in vein, we do not keep the Sabbath holy, we dishonor our parents, we murder, we commint adultery, we steal, we slander, we are envious of other people. Does any of this sound familier? Yes, it is the ten commandments, but in your own life, do you break any of these promises found in our ultimate covenant with God? I know I have! Which hurts my heart because I know that I broke some of these things and more and the entire time I did/do God still remains faithful to me.
God sent Jesus to die, in order for Him to fulfill His covenant to us! People who did not remain faithful to Him! How amazing is that? Sit down and think about that for a bit! When you do, you realize that the benefits we recieve from God, we really don't deserve! So we HAVE to strive to remain pure and holy just to honor God!
Does that make sense? Romans is incredible complicated and I could have interpreted this passage wrong but it made sense in my mind and I had to get it out!
Heavy!
P.S: Props to Stephen for the great message he brought to us on the Saturday night at YT! There were soul's won for Christ!
"But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness." (NIV)
Last night when I was reading chapter 6 for my Romans class, I read that verse and my eyes were opened. We as Christians all strive for a life holiness, hence the explicit anaology used this weekend. We need to bear the fruit of Jesus, we need to "give birth" to Jesus, the reason for the intercourse with a condom and masturbation analogy. However, as I read Romans 6:22 I got that you become holy in a different way.
Because we are free from the bondage of sin, we recieve a freedom from God; instead of being bound by the chains of sin, death and hell, we are enslaved to God through, love, kindness, and forgiveness. These are the benefits that we reap, these are the benefits that leads to our holiness! Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you have to be a New Creation Christian to show love, kindness, and forgiveness, but what I am saying is that because we are slaves to God, He shows us love, kindness, and forgiveness first hand. If we have acknowledged who Jesus is, if we've confessed with our mouths the Good News then we know of God's faithfulness to us. Because of this, we have benefits that non-believers do not have. HEAVEN!
These benefits from God leads to holiness in that, we understand that God will forgive us for our stupid human nature but because of his love and kindness to us, we should want to live as pure as we can for Him.
Romans is all about the covenant that God kept to His Choosen People even though we break ours daily. Think about this, we worship gods, we have false idols, we take the Lords name in vein, we do not keep the Sabbath holy, we dishonor our parents, we murder, we commint adultery, we steal, we slander, we are envious of other people. Does any of this sound familier? Yes, it is the ten commandments, but in your own life, do you break any of these promises found in our ultimate covenant with God? I know I have! Which hurts my heart because I know that I broke some of these things and more and the entire time I did/do God still remains faithful to me.
God sent Jesus to die, in order for Him to fulfill His covenant to us! People who did not remain faithful to Him! How amazing is that? Sit down and think about that for a bit! When you do, you realize that the benefits we recieve from God, we really don't deserve! So we HAVE to strive to remain pure and holy just to honor God!
Does that make sense? Romans is incredible complicated and I could have interpreted this passage wrong but it made sense in my mind and I had to get it out!
Heavy!
P.S: Props to Stephen for the great message he brought to us on the Saturday night at YT! There were soul's won for Christ!
posted by Debs | 6:08 AM
1 Comments:
You, Valerie, and I all started blogs this month, and we all chose the same layout. Craziness. I love your thoughts on holiness, and I agree; Romans is tough. It's fundamental and profound and completely confusing... all at the same time. I hope it won't be long until I see you again.
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