Without question, God expects His church to be holy: “But as the one who called you is holy, you also are to be holy in all your conduct;for it is written, ‘Be holy, because I am holy’” (1 Pet 1:15-16). I trust these questions will help you evaluate if your church is indeed holy:
- Has it been a long time since you clearly preached on the topic of holiness? If we seldom teach God’s standards, it’s tough to hold believers accountable to them.
- Does your church genuinely grieve sin? Holy believers weep over their sinful choices. Rather than live in bondage to sin, they readily confess and repent.
- Are your small groups just information-based, or do they include life-on-life accountability? Accountability isn’t the “cure-all,” but we’re more inclined to fight for holiness when others are walking with us.
- Do you question potential staff and volunteer leaders about the holiness of their walk? I fear we sometimes equate faithfulness to church with holiness before God, and we too seldom ask these hard questions.
- Do your church’s worship services leave participants with a sense of God’s holiness? It should be hard to preach about God and ignore His holiness (and His love), but too many of us somehow make that happen. Everything from our singing to our serving should be connected with a holy, loving God.
- Does your church carry out church discipline? Some churches wrongly almost delight in discipline, but most churches ignore this biblical expectation. Holy churches, though, recognize the value of restorative discipline.
- Do you have an identifiable pipeline for discipleship in holiness? Good disciplemaking includes teaching believers how to obey everything Jesus has commanded (Matt 28:18-20). Non-existent, sporadic, disorganized, or unplanned discipleship doesn’t lead toward holiness.
- Would your community say your members live differently than the world? This question is the personal one: in their day-to-day lives, do your church members live such holy lives that others in the community take note?
- Are you a holy leader? If you’re not, your church members aren’t likely to be holy, either. Unholy leaders seldom even call their people to holiness.
Would you whisper a prayer today that everyone who reads this blog would live holy lives before an unholy world? Thank you, readers, for your prayer support.
I am trying not to over-generalize. I am basing my conclusions on limited observations and not extensive scientific research. But I am observing a tendency among Christians here in the Bible Belt and elsewhere in the United States to dwell on where others are not behaving in accordance with standards that Scripture sets but not conform with these standards themselves. They focus on the sexual sins of others but fall short themselves in showing kindness, generosity, forgiveness, and compassion toward others. At the same time, they fall into sexual sin themselves and downplay its seriousness. One is left with the impression that these Christians are living by two standards—one for others and one for themselves. They go to church because attending church gives them warm, fuzzy feelings about Jesus and themselves and they come away feeling uplifted and inspired. But they evidence no life transformation. Their lives are not any different from their neighbors who slept in, took the kids to soccer, or played a round of golf on Sunday. The way they may differ from their neighbors is that they are more judgmental and tend to stick more with their “own kind.” Young people notice the double standard, the judgmentalism, and clannishness and may drop out of the church when they are older or they may steer clear of the church if they were not a part of the church as a child.
Holiness is to reflect the character and qualities of love for God and others. It is becoming a conduit of grace and being real about who you are. Our greatest desire as a follower of Christ, should be to reflect His glory. We are called to love like Jesus and the reality is we often fall short. However, our spiritual journey is a life pursuit of living in and extending amazing grace!
Holiness must begin with God. Isaiah 64:6 lets us know that our own righteousness is as filthy rags. In the original Hebrew, this was a reference to used menstrual garments. If that’s disgusting to you, then you get Isaiah’s point. Holiness also must start internally. If it is only an outward appearance, often it never goes any further. When God changes your heart, it will automatically be manifested in your life.