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ATTAINING HOLINESS


I'm certainly sure you reading this understands the obvious concept of sowing and reaping. And I'm twice sure it has happened to you, one way or another.

It's no new thing to you when I say "whatever you sow, you will also reap". It's not just a philosophy, it's not just karma, it's also the Word of God.

Delving deeper and comparing it with attaining Holiness, let's look at a popular scripture.

"Do not be be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man does, that he will also reap". (Galatians 6:7).

It is known by this truth and people's experiences that you can't reap where you didn't sow. You can't get a return of something you never invested in.

It's a simple law of life. A farmer can't harvest fruits at the end of a season without planting seeds of that fruit prior to that harvesting season.

That farmer will be seen as a joke expecting such.

And just like that, you can never reap anything when you sow nothing or reap something else when you sowed a different seed.

This is also the reason you just can't live holy. You may ask, "What's the correlation between the sowing and reaping concept and holiness"?

Let's look at the preceding verse of the earlier quoted scripture; 

"For he who does to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who does to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life." (Galatians 6:8).

It's clear now, right?

You cannot live holy because you're sowing wrong seeds. You're definitely sowing seeds but the issue is, you're not sowing right.

You're Christian and you ask yourself why you're not growing in holiness. You see other Christians leaving an admirable lifestyle with great integrity and purity and you wonder why your case is different. Or you feel attaining holiness and sanctification is difficult and straining to attain.

It's obvious that you've so much placed emphasis and value on your flesh more than your spirit man. The fleshly man is taking all the attention, investment, time and care. 

When I talk of the flesh now, I'm not just talking of the body in a literal sense, I'm talking about its lustful cravings.

1 John 2:16 points out something profound every believer should be mindful of... The lust of their flesh! It reveals that whoever loves the flesh and the world more than God has not the love of the Father in him.

Satisfying the flesh in its sinful cravings is like sowing seeds in it. And as Galatians reveals, you will surely reap corruption.

This is the reason you find traces of corruption in you. This is why christians are living corrupt lives...they are sowing in their flesh daily.

No wonder Jesus said something many Christians run away from. "If anyone will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. (Matthew 24:16).

These three phrases (deny yourself, take up your cross, follow Him) are topics of its own that needs deeper teaching. That will be for another article.

Understand that you definitely can't be so full of your SELF and SELFISH DESIRES and be holy at the same time. It can't happen!

Holiness is all about sanctification, purity, wholesomeness in spirit, soul and body. It's about being set apart for the Master's use.

You have to be separate from this world and its engagements. You have to deny yourself and the world its deadly pleasures, trends, philosophies, ideologies and activities to stand out pure.

Living in the world doesn't license you to follow it. The devil is still the god of this world.  And so long he remain in that position (until Jesus comes), you have to be vigilant, sober and careful of what you do and how you relate with those here. (1 Peter 5:8, 2 Corinthians 6:14).

Don't be amongst those that practice shallow Christianity (partially in Christ and partially in the world) (Matthew 6:24). Choose this day who you shall serve whole heartedly; with ALL your heart, not half-heartedly. (Joshua 24:15).

I'll end it here for now.

I've just realized that I can't exhaust all the knowledge in one blog post. Holiness is obviously a very broad topic and as a result, we'll continue with it next week. We'll learn how to attain holiness next week as the Spirit teaches.

Stay tuned.

God bless you.

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