CALLED TO HOLINESS

The early church called believers from impurity, to holiness and sanctification (1 Thess. 4:7). Leon Hynson wrote in The Wesleyan Renewal, suggesting that John Wesley regarded holiness as a lifelong process in which God skillfully sculpts us to his image. Using Wesley's analogy, Hynson describes repentance as the porch and faith as the door into the house, and reminds us that Wesley taught Christians to press on into perfect love.

Hynson says that Wesley sought two ends: 1) replacing the spirit of evil with the love of God, and 2) preparing believers to love the world in order to redeem the world. As people of God, it is critically important for us to have a firm conviction of whom and what we are.

The Lord your God has chosen you, Moses announced, and The Lord will establish you (Deut. 7:7b; 28:9). Paul pursued this theme in Rome, when greeting believers he described as chosen by God and actively committed to God's redeeming activity in the world (Romans, chapter 16). Peter insisted, You are a chosen people (1 Peter 2:9).

WE DISCOVER HOLINESS BY PURSING THE HOLY SPIRIT'S GIFTING.  He promises to empower and build up the body of Christ, as we use this gifting for the common good health of the church body, that it may be healthy (Eph. 4:11-13; I Cor. 12:7). As His people, we exercise the ability of dispensing grace (I Peter 4:10).

WE MODEL HOLINESS THROUGH PERSUASIVE LIVING. By making Jesus our model and mentor, we serve, rather than being served (Mk. 10:43). We do what we can for the least of these, because it is of utmost importance to the Lord (Mt. 25:40). We serve lovingly, knowing that anything less is a clanging cymbal (I Cor. 12:1).

WE COMMUNICATE HOLINESS THROUGH DISCIPLING.  Christ's last instructions were to go ... make disciples ... baptizing ... and teaching them everything I have commanded you (Mt. 28:19-20).

WE CONFORM TO HOLINESS BY SEEKING "FIRST" HIS KINGDOM (Mt. 6:33).  We strive  to carry out the will  of our Heavenly Father, staying action oriented, prioritizing discipleship and avoiding what Peter Wagner called St. John's Syndrome, that lukewarmness of spiritual old age and being at ease in Zion (Rev. 2:2).

WE WITNESS TO HOLINESS BY BEING CHRIST'S AMBASSADORS--people through whom He speaks to others (2 Cor. 5:19-20).  He commissions us to regard no one from a worldly point of view. We emulate His example by being His hands and feet wherever we go--living as tangible evidence of reality in a values-distorted world.

In 1995, General Colin Powell advised that he would not run for any political office in the government of the United States, because he lacked the "political passion." God calls us to holiness and charges us to be passionate about it. We are to be people mentored and commissioned by Jesus--focused above all else--on Christ.

As we focus upon His presence, Christ calls us to find each other in unity of purpose and allow Him to form us so that, united, we can make a difference in redeeming the world ... as contemporary as today's newspaper. He calls us to abandon the trivial and the piously self-serving, to separate from attempts to domesticate the Divine, and to become passionately involved in reconciling our splintered and fragmented world to his loving grace (2 Cor 5:19).

From Warner's World, this is walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com