Holiness and Sin

Holiness.  What is it?  How does it happen?  Is it possible?  

We know Christ is holy.  We know we are called to be holy.  We know holiness is connected with our behavior, and behavior is connected with our hearts, and our hearts are connected with our head.

"As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, [15] but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, [16] since it is written, 'You shall be holy, for I am holy.'" (1 Peter 1:14-16 ESV)

There are two important aspects to holiness: mortification and vivification.   Mortification means killing sin in our mind, hearts, and hands.  Vivification means imitating Christ in righteous thinking, feeling, and action.

Here is a good resource for discovering the depths of our sin through God's commandments, so that we may continuously mortify (kill) the flesh through knowledge, repentance, and confession.

Here is a helpful handout on understanding the work of holiness that God desires to accomplish within us!

"People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated." - D.A. Carson

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