Holy in Christ: Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is HolyMurray, Andrew
Religion
Holy in Christ: Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy
Murray, Andrew
Holiness
What numberless complaints of insufficient strength to do God's will, of
unsuccessful effort and disappointed hopes, of continual failure,
re-echo in a thousand different forms the complaint of the captive, 'O
wretched man that I am!' Thank God! there is deliverance. 'With freedom
did Christ set us free! Stand fast therefore, and be not entangled again
in a yoke of bondage.' Satan is ever seeking to lay on us again the yoke
either of sin or the law, to beget again the spirit of bondage, as if
sin or the law with their demands somehow had power over us. It is not
so: be not entangled; stand fast in the liberty with which Christ has
made you free. Let us listen to the message: 'Being made free from sin,
ye became servants unto righteousness; now yield your members servants
to righteousness _unto sanctification_.' 'Having been made free from
sin, and having been enslaved unto God, ye have your fruit _unto
sanctification_.' To be holy, you must be free, perfectly free; free for
Jesus to rule you, to lead you; free for the Holy Spirit to dispose of
you, to breathe in you, to work His secret, gentle, but mighty work, so
that you may grow up unto all the liberty Jesus has won for you. The
temple could not be sanctified by the indwelling of God, except as it
was free from every other master and every other use, to be for Him and
His service alone. The inner temple of our heart cannot be truly and
fully sanctified, except as we are free from every other master and
power, from every yoke of bondage, or fear, or doubt, to let His Spirit
lead us into the perfect liberty which has its fruit in true holiness.
Being made free from sin, having become servants unto righteousness, ye
have your fruit unto holiness, and the end life everlasting. Freedom,
Righteousness, Holiness--these are the steps on the way to the coming
glory. The more deeply we enter by faith into our liberty, which we have
in Christ, the more joyfully and confidently we present our members to
God as instruments of righteousness. The God is the Father whose will we
delight to do, whose service is perfect liberty. The Redeemer is the
Master, to whom love binds us in willing obedience. The liberty is not
lawlessness: 'we are delivered from our enemies, that we may serve Him
in righteousness and holiness all the days of our life.'[12]
The liberty is the condition of the righteousness; and this again of the
holiness. The doing of God's will leads up into that fellowship, that
heart sympathy with God Himself, out of which comes that reflection of
the Divine Presence, which is Holiness. Being made free from sin, being
made the slaves of righteousness and of God, we have our fruit unto
holiness, and the end--the fruit of holiness becomes, when ripe, the
seed of--everlasting life.
BE YE HOLY, AS I AM HOLY.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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