The Call of the Christian

Part Two – Be Holy

By Michael K. Farrar

© God’s Breath Publications

 

When we are saved from our sins and become a follower of Christ we need to understand that in our service to our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, our Heavenly Father wants us to follow our calling. Our calling will be fulfilled as the Holy Spirit, who is given to us as a gift to reside within us at conversion, empowers us accomplish this calling.

 

Some would say our calling as followers of Christ is to impact society through political and social means by voting, obeying the laws of the land and providing assistance for those in need. While these are activities that responsible Believers should participate in, they are not the main calling that is upon our lives. Others feel that our calling is to attend church, learn about the Bible and worship God every Sunday. While this is also a good practice for the Christian, it is not our main calling. Still others would say that our focus should be that we pray for and practice, signs and wonders, including experiencing encounters with His Spirit. While these can be beneficial at times in the life of a Christian they are not the calling of the Christian. The desire for signs and wonders, as well as spiritual experiences, without the proper basis and wisdom of God’s Word can actually become a distraction or hindrance to the true calling of a Believer.

 

I believe the call in the life of the follower of Christ is threefold or triune. One part of our calling as a Christian is found in 1 Peter 1:15-16. This passage states, “But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”

 

Here Peter is quoting Leviticus 11:44-45 “I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. Do not make yourselves unclean by any creature that moves about on the ground. I am the Lord who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy.” Peter is tying the Old and New Testaments together just as Jesus Christ did in His teachings. God called the nation of Israel to be holy, pure and blameless and He also calls us as followers of Christ to do the same. This is a high calling we have and we must understand what it means to be holy. So let’s begin at the beginning when we first committed our lives to Christ as our Lord and Master.

 

When we submitted to Christ as the Savior and Lord of our life at our conversion we were justified by faith through grace (Rom. 3:24, Eph. 2:8-9, Titus 3:4-7). Our sins were forgiven (Rom.4:7). We were accepted into God’s family, adopted if you will (Eph. 1:5-6). This is what we know as justification. Justification changes our position before our Heavenly Father. There is no longer a barrier between us and God. Because the debt for sin has been paid we have been declared holy in God’s sight. In other words, God views us as holy from a positional standpoint. We are no longer under God’s judgment because we are now holy from a legal standpoint due to the fact that Jesus paid our debt for sin at the crucifixion. Justification is an instantaneous, external, objective and legal method which allows us to have fellowship with our Heavenly Father. Romans 5:1-2 states,

 

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.”

 

So we are “positionally” holy by our act of submitting to the lordship of Jesus Christ over our lives and accepting the payment He made for our sins on the cross. But our present condition is not holy. There is growth that still needs to take place in obedience to God’s Word in the way we live, act, think and treat others. Jesus gave us an example to follow and we are to pattern our lives after His so that we can grow in the holiness that is reflected in our present condition. As we seek to obey God and grow in spiritual maturity this process of becoming holy is continually going on and is called sanctification. So we were justified as holy when we are first saved so we can fellowship with God and be part of His family. But we are in the process of becoming holy in our condition through the process of sanctification (2 Peter 1:5-9). It is this process that Peter is alluding to when he shares that God commands us to be holy as He is holy. This process of becoming sanctified is nothing more than becoming more and more like Christ each day as we grow in our faith. This is a cooperative process between God and us. Philippians 2:12 says, “Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” This verse tells us to work out our salvation but also states that God is at work in us as well. Therefore we must supply the obedience and God supplies the spiritual transformation. Sanctification is not an event. lt is a process. It is internal, subjective and experiential. While we may be justified holy in our position before God, we are in need of a transformation in our spiritual condition and this takes place the rest of our lives as followers of Christ.

 

Now you might ask, “When do we become totally holy?” Well that will never happen in our life on this earth. While our position before God is holy because we are a follower of Christ, our condition will always be below the mark until we reach Heaven. That is part of what we look forward to in our future in Heaven. We can expect to live with God in heaven and receive glorified bodies that will never die (1 Cor. 15:52-54, Phil. 3:20-21, 1 John 3:2) and be completely holy in our Heavenly home. This is known as the glorification of the saints. When Christ comes to take us home we will be reunited with all those saints that have gone before us and we will worship our Heavenly Father forever.

 

So in our Christian lives we have a past when we became justified as holy in God’s eyes and we will have a future where we will be holy and glorified. But, our situation in the present is drastically different. We are not perfect in our spiritual condition and so with the help of the Holy Spirit, God who lives live us, we seek to obey God’s Word following the example of Jesus Christ to become more holy each and every day.

 

1 John 3:2-3 also speaks of this process of becoming sanctified and eventually glorified.

 

“Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.”

 

Here the apostle John tells us that right now we are children of God, but what we will be (glorified) is not yet known. But we know when Christ returns we will be like Him (glorified). Because we have this future hope we now, in the present, seek to obey Jesus and purify ourselves in the process of becoming holy through obedience and service.

 

Remember the verse from Philippians I shared earlier. This verse helps us understand how to blend our efforts with God’s influence into a combined process of seeking holiness, which is what we call the process of sanctification. Here is the verse again.

 

“Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.”

 

This verse demonstrates the mutual responsibility of both God and us in this process of becoming holy, of becoming sanctified. We need to become what we have been declared to be. While God provides the power we supply the obedience. We are justified and sanctified by faith, but when we are justified we bring nothing to the process. When we are sanctified we do bring something to the process. The phrase “with fear and trembling” was a stock phrase in Paul’s day. It meant to do the addressed task with an attitude of humble dependence. God works in us to develop our holiness as we cooperate with Him through obedience. Without our obedience God cannot bring us to holiness and without Him we cannot achieve it in our own efforts. We might compare this to the process of remodeling an old house. Our spiritual life is like an old house that needs to be remodeled. We can’t remodel our life by ourselves and have any success at it. Only God can provide the expertise and the power to remodel our lives and make them holy. But He can’t do this without our cooperation. He won’t force us to work at being holy, but He does command it and asks us to participate with Him in the process of becoming holy, what is called the process of sanctification.

 

Obeying God’s commands is not a burdensome task (1 John 5:3) for we do it willingly because we love God so deeply. If we place our love for God over our love for self, then we are anxious to obey His commands and walk in a way that honors our Lord and Master Jesus Christ. We also must understand that we live by God’s grace. He is perfectly patient with us knowing that we will make mistakes at times. We will make choices that will cause us to stumble in our walk with Him, but as long as we seek forgiveness for our failings and sins (1 John 2:1-2) we can know He will forgive us and lift us up to try again. Even if we willingly disobey Him, God is the perfect parent and will discipline us in such a constructive manner that we will seek to return to Him so we can regain our fellowship with Him. This is all part of the process of sanctification, or becoming more and more holy in our spiritual condition.

 

Here is a summary to illustrate these concepts.

 

Past – Justification

Positional holiness granted at conversion.

 

Present – Sanctification

A continual process of becoming more holy in our actual spiritual condition.

 

Future – Glorification

The heavenly blessing of becoming holy as Christ.

 

Our calling to be “holy as God is holy” existed not only before we were born, but even before the world was created! Ephesians 1:3-4 states, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.” How amazing is that! So let us as followers of Christ seek to give thanks for our justified holy position before God, pursue, through obedience, becoming more holy in the process of sanctification and look forward to the blessing of our glorification in heaven. Let us live up to the calling to be holy as God is holy. May we seek this task with the understanding that God will work in and through us as we become willing vessels for Him to use and conform to the image of Christ.

 

“You can’t get holy in a hurry — but you start taking steps in that direction right away. Beg God, “Put within me some holy motivation.”

Malcom Cronk

 

“Sow a thought. Reap an action.

Sow an action. Reap a habit.

Sow a habit. Reap a character.

Sow a character. Reap a destiny.”

 

Hebrews 12:14

“Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.”

 

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24

“May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.”

 

Hebrews 13:20-21

“May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”