The Direction of My Life

Psalm 86:8-13
“Among the gods there is none like You, O Lord;
Nor are there any works like Your works.
All nations whom You have made
Shall come and worship before You, O Lord,
And shall glorify Your name.
For You are great, and do wondrous things;
You alone are God.

Teach me Your way, O LORD;
I will walk in Your truth;
Unite my heart to fear Your name.
I will praise You, O Lord my God, with all my heart,
And I will glorify Your name forevermore,
For great is Your mercy toward me,
And You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.”

I’ve noticed in my surfing around different blog conversations that it seems like discussions of our liberty in Christ always seem to focus on justifying how far we can go in looking and sounding like the world. I wonder what would happen if instead of flirting around with how much like the culture and how worldly we are at liberty to be we started looking at it the other way and focusing on how holy we are at liberty to be. Hmmm. The more I’m reading and hearing and seeing from the conversations that work so hard to justify certain language and behavior, the more I’m wondering this. Weren’t we told to be holy as He is holy? Not from a legalistic, pharisaical, prideful motivation – I don’t think I need to go around casting stones or making it my mission in life to look for faults in people who also claim to be servants of Christ. We are not reconciled to God by our good works, but through faith in Christ's righteousness alone. But when we are are trusting in Christ, we are saved from bondage to sin and freed to live for God’s glory. On matters of conscience, I think we should be full of grace, not legalism, understanding that we who claim the name of Christ all answer to Him and seek to have a clear conscience before Him. We are servants of Jesus, and only He knows our hearts.

But because we are clothed in His righteousness and are being conformed to the nature of the One who has redeemed us, shouldn’t the direction of our lives be toward holiness? Isn’t that what sanctification is all about? By the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives, moving ever in the direction of the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount – poor in spirit and hungering and thirsting after righteousness and all the rest, seeking first His Kingdom. If we’re spending much time trying to justify behavior that honestly isn’t holy, we’re really wasting time, in my opinion, and sometimes I think some people protest too much, if you get my meaning. If we seek to live lives that are above reproach, do we have to waste much time justifying the language we use or the entertainments we enjoy? While we are living in the world and enjoying the good things that God has allowed us to enjoy, we must still hold lightly to the things of this world and seek first His Kingdom. We are to be in the world, yes, but not of it. There should be a noticeable difference in those who have been redeemed and washed in the blood of Christ.

The more I read and study the Bible and spend time in prayer, the more I’m wanting to echo what the Psalmist says here. Our God is holy. He alone is God. All the nations He has made will worship and glorify Him. I want to walk in HIS truth and fear His name. His mercy is incredibly great to me. And the more I know of Him, the more I hunger and thirst for His righteousness and want to be true to what He has shown me to be truth and to have a passion to be a faithful and compassionate witness to share the hope of His amazing gospel with people I meet who need to hear it. I can’t control the decisions other people make, but as for me, because of His awesome love and mercy and grace, I want to be holy as He is holy. I want the direction of my life to be toward His holiness. I want the focus of my life to be to make much of Christ in all I say and do and to lift to Him a life of praise and worship. Sure, there are times I slip and say or do things I wish I hadn’t. But rather than try to justify those things or allow them to be the character of my life, I pray I will confess them and ask God for the strength to grow in holiness. May I live life to the glory of Jesus and point people to Him by my words and my actions, for He is worthy of all honor, glory and praise.