As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said, “I am holy, you be holy.” — 1 Peter 1:16 (The Message)
Some years ago I was called upon in my role as a pastor, to write an affidavit in a legal case, in response to what I considered to be signs of a true conversion to the Christian faith. Have you ever thought about that? How would you articulate it? You’d probably start where I did—you would look for clear evidence of a change in character and behavior for the better, specifically in the things that Christians do and believe such as study God’s word, pray, go to church, join in the sacraments and fellowship with other believers (Acts 2:42-48). But have you ever thought of holiness as evidence of a true conversion—living a sanctified life? Holiness in its simplest sense means, “set apart”—a distinct spiritual life.
Now the Bible is very clear that no one but God can look into the human heart (1 Samuel 16:7), so we are warned to be very careful in making our judgments absolute—but Jesus was also very clear in His teaching that good fruit can only come from a good tree, while bad fruit comes from a bad tree. In that parable Jesus was pointing to us and the source of our behavior—and our being separate from the world (Matthew 3:10; 7:16-20).
Even in the field of jurisprudence, there is a legal doctrine taken from our Lord’s discourse called, “The fruit of the poison tree,” which means that anything obtained from a tainted source is also tainted and must be avoided as legal evidence. Cases have been thrown out of court when the source was discovered to be rotten to the core.
If we’ve really been converted (2 Corinthians 5:17), we can’t go back to our same old sinful bumpkin life-style, doing the same old evil things—our behavior must be altered. Eugene Peterson says it like this from The Message: “Don’t lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing. You didn’t know any better then; you do now” (1 Peter 1:14). Here’s a great example:
Julie Mae was an elderly lady in the church who was almost deaf and could hardly see. She never slept very well, usually ached all over and it took her forever to get dressed. Despite these issues, she wanted to be in church on Sunday mornings but she couldn’t get there on her own—so different members would have to drive by her house and pick her up.
One Sunday she overslept and was running late. She wasn’t ready when a member came by to get her and she made him late to church, as well. As she was being helped out of the car the man became very exasperated and blurted out loudly, “Julie Mae, why do you even bother coming to church, you can’t see, you can hardly hear—you can’t be getting much out of coming, why do you bother?” She looked up at him with soft eyes full of compassion and said, “I just want people to know who I belong to!
Holiness demands that the world knows who we belong to. Is it obvious by the way we live out our lives? Is it obvious to our neighbors, where we work, to our friends, to our family—and most importantly to God? Maranatha!
To help us walk closer with God and to know Him better
