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| (Me and Al Willingham in Kenya) |
The coming
revival will be a revival of holiness.
Yesterday morning at Redeemer I preached on the coming revival and what Patricia King has called the "monster wave" of holiness. This coming Sunday, I'll again preach on revival and holiness.
Holiness. God is holy. In
Exodus 15:11 we read these beautiful words:
Who among the gods is like you, Lord?
Who is like you—
majestic in holiness,
awesome in glory,
working wonders?
The holiness of God is majestic. Awe-inspiring. Other.
This word "holy" means "set apart." Like fine dinnerware gracing the table on the most special celebrations. Like a young man and a young woman who have set their hearts and bodies apart for the marital union. That's different.
This word "holy" can be translated as "different." But from what? From this fallen world. Different from the prevailing world system. Different from culture, in the sense that one no longer worships before and under cultural liturgies. (On cultural liturgies see James K. A. Smith, You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit.)
"Holiness" is as different from secular culture as light is from darkness. Holiness is light rather than darkness. Some thing, or someone, who is light would contain no darkness at all, just as a rose contains not one part dandelion.
I began to
learn this about God years ago when I began breaking free from the evil and boredom
of cultural ordinariness, and caught sight of holiness.
This is the
message we have heard from him and declare to you:
God is light;
in him there is no darkness at all.
(1 John 1:5)
I'm talking about the majestic otherness of God. Which brings us to the plebeian subhumanity of us. Hebrews 12:14 says:
Make every effort
to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no
one will see the Lord.
Why? Because God is holy, without remainder.
Because I came to love God and desire God more than anything. Because I wanted
to know God, with every fiber of my weak being.
More than anything.
This is a mark of every true follower of Jesus who is
captivated by a life of holiness.
This is for every seeker who is sick and
tired of trying to fit in with our sex-and-drug-and-appearance world, and sets
out to pursue holiness and difference, not for the sake of difference, but for
the sake of the great calling and majesty of the One who made and sustains all
things. (We could here make some post-structuralist, deconstructionst comments
on pursuing différance rather than appearance.)
Holiness runs towards, not away.
Holiness presses on, not languishes in.
People
who grow in holiness do so out of love, not out of fear.
Holiness is
attraction, not disappointment.
Holiness is actualized possibility, not
limitation.
Holiness is liberation, not bondage.
Holiness is revolutionary, not
complacency.
We leave the steel nets of our culture lying on the beach-heads of
mediocrity, so as to follow after He who is set apart and, ontologically,
different.
Longing for God and finding Him. That's what holiness is about.
Holiness is unique. Holiness is non-comparative.
When God found me and showed me His
glory, I was ruined for this silly world of recurring sinful sameness that God
died for.
***
My two books are:
My two books are:
I'm now working on...
Transformation: How God Changes the Human Heart
I am editing a book of essays on the Holy Spirit, authored by my HSRM colleagues. Hopefully this book will be out by the end of May.
And, when all this settles, Linda and I intend on writing our book on Relationships.
