HOLINESS AND RIGHTEOUSNESS

A REAL GOOD FRIEND OF MINE, SENT ME THIS....

Hebrews 10:10 (NLT) And what God wants is for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time.

1 Peter 1:16 (NLT) For he himself has said, "You must be holy because I am holy."

Holiness and righteousness is the absence of sin. Since we all have sinned we must undo our sins.

1 John 1:9 (NKJV) 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

The sin in us causes us to continue to sin.

Romans 7:20 (NKJV) Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

Holiness and righteousness become evident in our lives when we are transformed into vessels that look more like Jesus.

Galatians 5:22-23 (NKJV) But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

This is not a transformation that we do on our own efforts (legalism), but rather becomes automatic, just the same as the sinful responses that Paul described in Romans 7:15. This is God’s grace.

Romans 7:15 (NKJV) For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.

Paul tells us how to get the fruits of the spirit.

Galatians 5:24 (NKJV) And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

The passions are our emotions, which is evidence of not being in peace. Our desires are the weaknesses in our lives that Satan can tempt us.

In other Bible translations, sin nature, or old nature, is used for flesh because in Greek at the time this was written flesh had more than one meaning, and if you understand flesh to mean as a literal translation you will miss the true meaning of what Paul is saying.

To crucify sin nature you must first nail it to the cross. To do this is to acknowledge and to agree, which is the definition of confessing.
In addition to confessing, our minds must be purged or made pure through the works of the Holy Spirit.

Hebrews 9:14 (KJV) How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

Romans 12:2 (KJV) And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

So, to complete the process of transformation we must have our minds purged and renewed. The scriptures don’t completely inform us what this means. Paul tells us in Ephesians that our battle with the devil is about arguments. The pieces of the armor (truth, righteousness, peace, salvation, faith, and the Word of God) are all beliefs. What we know and understand come from our experiences and we live based on what we believe. So, if what we believe in our experiences is impure and contrary to God’s truth, we will have a problem living according to God’s truth. No person was able to live the law on their own efforts so Jesus came to us to free us of our sins and bondages.

It is not enough to just get more of God’s truth in our lives, but rather have His truth renew our truths when these truths do not conform to God’s. Two elements must be present for this to happen. First, we must will it because God will not cross our free will. So many times people don’t want to give up what they believe. Second, we must allow the Holy Spirit to be in the process rather that try and do it on our own. What has happened is done and we can’t change history, but Jesus and the Holy Spirit can transcend time. In doing so our beliefs of our experiences are changed so that the power of these life controlling issues is gone.

Romans 6:6 (NLT) Our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin.

“That sin might lose its power in our lives” infers that this is conditional to those who cooperate in this process.

Peter had fear that became evident when he denied Jesus three times, but when Jesus renewed his mind by replacing fear with God’s perfect love, Peter preached in power with out fear. It makes perfect sense that Paul would call the evidence of our transformation the fruits of the spirit.

Interestingly, many movements and revivals of the past have developed through people who have sought holiness and righteousness in their lives first. Is this possible that getting free of sin removes the obstacles that inhibit the Holy Spirit from moving through our lives and just inhibits us from following through with what we are called to do?
Neil Elmer
neil@healedheartministry.com
www.healedheartministry.com

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