The First Rambling

BE HOLY FOR I AM HOLY -By Sue Merriner.



Do you believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God? I do.I believe the
Holy Spirit of God breathed life into the scriptures and protected them
from mistakes being included in their writing.I also believe the Bible is
intended to be our handbook for living. We can find a scripture somewhere
in the Bible that pertains to every situation. It gives us direction.

There is one scripture which stands out in my mind today. That scripture
is found in 1P1:16 Be Holy for I am Holy. That sounds almost
intimidating but it is simply meant to say that we should try to live holy
lives, pure before God and untarnished by worldly things. This does not
mean we are not allowed to sin at all. Everyone knows this is an
impossibility but we are to repent when we sin. Many people think they
can accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior and then go about their
lives without changing. This is unbiblical for Mt.19:17 says "If you want
to enter life obey the commandments." This means we are suppose to change
from our old carnal nature into a new being, in other words we are to be
born again. We need to change. This change is discussed fully in Romans
chapter 6 with the taking off of the old man or the old sin nature.

The Apostle Paul speaks clearly and authoritatively on this subject. His
authority comes from the Holy Spirit of God and this is the same with all
the scriptures. Anything that an Apostle has not singled out as being his
own thoughts is from God. We can believe it. We can also believe that
anything that is repeated more than once in the scriptures is very
important. Today scripture is quoted several times in the book of
Leviticus. The references are Lev.11:44-45, 19:2, 20:7, 26, 21:6 and
26:19. This means that this is an extremely important scripture and we
should pay particular attention to it. God recognizes that we will fall
short of his glory but he is a gracious and merciful God who forgives us
if we ask him to.

This, however, does not mean that we can say I'm sorry and then continue
on in the same sin. This is a lack of repentance. Many people do this
and the reason is sometimes because they really do not understand the
gravity of their sin. Still others do it because they are trying to
repent in their own power instead of in the power of the Holy Spirit.
This simply means we cannot do anything apart from God. We need to ask
him for his help in our repentance. We should all pray that we would have
holiness in our lives. As the Scott Underwood song says,
Holiness, Holiness is what I long for,
Holiness is what I need,
Holiness, Holiness is what you want from me,
Take my heart and form it,
Take my mind transform it,
Take my will conform it,
To yours.
This is what is meant by Be Holy for I am Holy.