HE is Holy

1 Peter 1:13-16 Therefore, gird your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy one who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, “YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY.”

I don’t know about you but this scripture really causes me to stop and ponder. I don’t sit around thinking of myself as ‘holy.’ On the contrary, I am painfully aware of the just how ‘holy’ I am not. I admit that there was a time in my life where I lived by the flesh in complete ignorance. That is not an attempt to excuse or condone, it is a statement of fact. I called myself a Christian. I believed in God and that Jesus died on the cross for me, so I was a Christian…right? I was even attending church on a regular basis, taking dishes to potluck meals, serving where I could. See? A Christian.

The key words to me in this scripture are the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. I believed in Jesus but had not yet experienced the revelation of Jesus Christ. Trust me, there is a vast difference! The lack of that revelation were yours (mine) in your (my) ignorance. I thought that ‘believing’ in Jesus was enough. I was wrong. I considered myself pretty good at justifying my behavior. A girl has to do what a girl has to do. OH, PLEASE! The only one I was fooling was me.

Okay, back to the revelation of Jesus Christ. Most of you know me and would recognize me on the street face to face and you know about me. But, aside from this blog and the things I share of my life, you know very little OF me. To know about me does not mean you know me. This is where I was when I called myself a Christian. Others of you have spent years in my life and think you’ve got a pretty good grasp of who I am. But a few of you have invested time and effort to look deeper, to see what makes me tick, and know how I think, what I feel, how I would handle myself and know my strengths and weaknesses. Those few have revelation of me because they choose to know me intimately. This is where we are when we seek to know Jesus Christ intimately, we are given revelation of Him through knowledge gained by time invested with Him.

No longer are we satisfied to be ‘believers’ of Christ but we seek to know Him, the deity, the man, the living sacrifice. We want to emulate Him, to grow in our personal relationship with Him. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is where we strive to be holy yourselves also in all your behavior because He was holy in all His behavior. He is the standard by which we measure our thoughts and actions. WWJD is more than a slogan to sell bracelets, it is the mark we long to hit. 

I’d love to tell you I no longer have unholy thoughts but that would be a lie. I certainly can tell you I have fewer unholy thoughts today than I did all those years ago because I live to be more Christ-like. And when I do have an unholy thought come to mind, I quickly recognize it as such, stop the thought process, ask for forgiveness and replace it with godly words. That, too, is easier today because I know more scripture and godly thoughts than I did before I chose to KNOW Jesus. No, I am not holy on my own, nor do I pretend to be. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy one who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, “YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY.”