Holiness IS

Holiness IS NOT:

Don't drink alcohol, or play cards, or dance, or wear clothes that reveal your calves. (A contemporary version of this list could include: vote Democratic, use drugs, listen to Eminem, engage in homosexual activity.) Don't associate with the types of people who do these things. Don't associate with the types of people who don't condemn these things. Don't associate with people who aren't holy like us...

Holiness IS:

'Keeping in step with the Spirit,' and producing the fruit of that. Embracing the 'abundant life,' the 'spring of living water,' and the overflow of God's goodness. Jesus tells us that God desires mercy and not sacrifice; He desires for us to overflow with goodness to show how holy we are, not to give up good things to show how holy we are.

=====================================

Holiness is a positive thing, not a negative thing; it is a quality or state of being, not the absence of something. Holiness is something true about your being, not something true of your circumstances. If we are 'Holy as God is Holy' then that holiness will send us into the midst of the community of sinners, it will not cause us to flee it in a panic, afraid the unholiness will rub off on us, but rather impell us with hope that the holiness will rub off on them.

=====================================

Holiness is something, unholiness is the absence of something; not the other way around.


Here are some applicable passages:

Romans 12:1-2 Living Sacrifices, embracing what God is doing, not what the culture is doing (not rejecting, but embracing)

1 Corinthians 6:18-20 Sexual sin is wrong because it denies the reality that God wants us to embrace

Galatians 5:22-25 The Fruits of the Spirit and 'keeping in step with the spirit'

Matthew 5:20 Righteousness surpassing the Pharisees

Luke 6:43-45 Good fruit v Bad fruit, we are not simply cutting off branches, but producing good fruit

Matthew 9:9-13 Mercy not Sacrifice; have compassion on people instead of focusing on avoiding sin; overflowing v cutting off

Luke 10:25-37 Good Samaritan; the 'evildoers' are those who refuse to take responsibility, they are holy and undefiled, but the are not holy!

John 7:37-39 Streams of living water overflowing

John 10:10 Life abundant

Luke 13 healing on the sabbath v propriety

Luke 11 frauds pharisee dinner, clean the outside but the inside is dirty