REFLECTIONS

Written by Stephen Shead

We’re halfway through our month of devotions on growing in holiness. Let’s pause to recap what we’ve seen.

Holiness means being devoted to God. Our holiness starts with God rescuing us. Through faith in Jesus, he delivers us from sin and adopts us as his children, so that now we belong to him. We now exist for the praise of his glory and goodness. God delivers us and devotes us to himself, as an act of sheer grace.

But that holy status that God gives us is something we also live out in an ongoing and growing way. Practical holiness means living a life that is devoted to God.

Over the next two weeks, we’re going to think about what it looks like to live in devotion to God in many different areas of life. But what we’ve seen so far will help us to avoid two possible errors: legalism and licence to sin.

Legalism is thinking that the thing which will save us is obeying God’s laws. But legalism completely misses the fact that we receive salvation by God’s grace alone, as a gift that we will never earn or gain by our works. Holiness means being devoted to God by his grace.

The other error is thinking that the gospel gives us a licence to sin. After all, if our works don’t save us, then it doesn’t matter what we do, even if it’s sinful, right? But that thinking completely misses the fact that holiness means being devoted to God! The gospel teaches us to be captivated by God himself, and to allow his love to both forgive us and transform us.

Let’s start the second half of our journey, and think about growing in holy living. To help us, we are going to turn to one of the most famous parts of the Old Testament: The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17). The Ten Commandments are a summary of the Law that God gave Israel through Moses. We’re not going to stick closely to them, though – they will be a rough guide to the topics we’ll cover, but we’ll range over the whole Bible.

Here is how the Ten Commandments begin:

1 And God spoke all these words:

2 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

3 “You shall have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:1-3)

Delivered from slavery, devoted to God. It almost sounds like this is going to be about holiness, doesn’t it!?

Like most of the Ten Commandments, the first one is expressed negatively: “You shall not have other gods before me.” What would the positive version be? I think it would be the commandment that the Lord Jesus said is the greatest in the whole Old Testament Law:

Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. (Deuteronomy 6:5; see Matthew 22:35-38)

When we hear “love,” we tend to think about emotions. Now there’s nothing wrong with loving feelings – and I’m confident that in heaven, we’ll be bursting with loving feelings for God at every second. But in the Bible, love is not about emotion, but devotion. To love God doesn’t mean to feel warm and fuzzy. It means to be completely loyal and committed to him, to obey him above all others, to put him above everything else in your life. It’s about your will, your determination and resolve – which what the Bible usually means by “your heart.”

So the question God’s Word puts before us is: Are you unwaveringly, constantly committed to putting God above every other path in life that would diminish his glory? Are you determined to obey him in every area of your life? Is your loyalty to God stronger and more faithful than every competing desire or impulse?

You know, this very first commandment – the one that Jesus says is the most important of all – is so impossible for us sinners to obey perfectly that it ends up being strangely comforting! It’s a reminder that we can’t possibly earn God’s favour … and it’s such a relief that we don’t need to! Jesus is “our righteousness, holiness and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30).

Of course, if you have said “yes” to Jesus, then God’s kindness and love have started to radically change your direction in life, so that you want to live for him alone. But if you realise that you are keeping God out of the direction of your life, if you have never surrendered your life to him and said, “I want you to be completely in charge,” then you need to do some serious business with the Lord Jesus today.

Either way, bring this to God in prayer, and tell him what you want him to do in your life and your heart.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephen is our senior minister.