Holiness is our calling

Let’s get into it.

“Therefore, with your minds ready for action, be sober-minded and set your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires of your former ignorance. But as the one who called you is holy, you also are to be holy in all your conduct; for it is written, Be holy, because I am holy.” — 1 Peter 1:13-16

I played a few sports in middle and high school and just like any sport we practiced. Why? Because we needed to be prepared for anything. In basketball, we needed to prepare for man to man defense and offense, or if their defense did a 3-2 on us or 2-3 on us, how would we prepare offensively to score and how would we prepare ourselves defensively so they wouldn’t score. There are times in the games where we will be caught off guard, the important part of getting caught off guard is how will we react and how will we allow to not happen again? How will we adjust? How will we help those around us to not get caught in it and help them to know how to react when they get caught off guard in other areas of their lives.

My question for us today is: How do you prepare your mind for something you don’t know will take place?

My husband and I have been married 5 years going on 6 in the next few weeks. And if I told you that we were ready for all the unexpected things that we’ve experienced we would be absolutely lying to you. But what we can tell you is that every time we plan we say if the Lord wills. In James 4:13-16 he starts by saying, 'Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will travel to such and such a city and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.” Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring — what your life will be! For you are like vapor that appears for a little while, then vanishes. Instead, you should say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

How many times have we said something and then the plans change?

I cannot even count with my fingers, I can but I’d rather not. It humbles me every time I think about it to know that I am not God. All over scripture we see may do things they never thought they would do, we see them receive things they never thought they would. Does that not encourage us though, to know that the same God that was looking out for them back then, is the same God looking out for us now? That he desires to see us walk in the will He has already ordained for us? Which is more simple than we try and make it.

One thing that has hurt me in saying plans to early to others is that when it doesn’t take place it makes me feel silly, if I promised someone something may happen and then I have to write the worst text ever and say, ‘ I am so sorry but it can’t happen in the time I said.’ The hardest part as well is, how can we plan if we don’t know for sure things will happen? How can we plan if God already knows what will happen?

Well, that is where we trust the Lord. We trust Him in staying silent until the time comes and it is time to say. We trust Him that He will guide us through the lanes we are too walk through, he will guide the conversations that need to take place, he will strengthen us and overwhelm with his grace to stand firm and know that He is in total control. Which is hard but worth it and should also take off the burden of carrying it. 'Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

LET THIS VERSE CARRY YOU. PRAY THIS OVER THOSE AROUND YOU THAT DEPEND ON YOU THAT THEY MAY REST IN THE LORD AND HIS GOODNESS.

Okay, so I hope that answered our question of the day, “How do you prepare your mind for something you don’t know will take place?” By placing our hope and expectation on Him. By removing ourselves and choosing to put Christ on his command chair and saying alright Lord, lead me, I’m not sure what to do here but you do and help me to do what you’ve called me to which is to BE HOLY AS YOU ARE HOLY.

The only way to walk in Holiness is by being sober-minded, putting our hope in him and on the grace we have been given by the love of the Father to not see us perish but to have eternal life.

Sober-minded. Free from things that keep us from allowing the Lord to fully lead us. The things of the world get our attention a lot, am I right? It steers us away, if we let it, it steers us away from focusing on the end goal, life with Jesus for eternity.

We can’t prepare for the unknown without being sober.

Without being sober-minded we will make decisions that will lead us to do things outside of being holy as Christ is holy.

sober-minded: being a thinker who is calm, unhurried, and characterized by seriousness and a lack of excess, rational, sensible.

ARE WE MARKED IN THIS WAY?

THAT THOSE AROUND US LOOK UNTO US AND SEE US AS UNHURRIED, CALM, SERIOUS in such a way where we choose responsibility over desire, where we choose giving over having? I truly believe the way the that the world gets turns upside down is by doing the complete opposite of what the world is doing. You are probably saying, ‘well duh.’ And I say I know that but are we doing it? Are we walking in such a way where we are saying no to our former way of living, our former way of buying, our former way of speaking, our former way of driving, writing, reacting?

“When they observed the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed and recognized that they had been with Jesus.” —Acts 4:13

In my young years of life, I remember making decisions to sober-minded, but with a desire to be wanted, to be seen as good enough, which led to decisions that I regret to this day but know that I have been redeemed by His grace and that to this day now things I used to do are done in a way that actually pleases him instead of hurting him.

* May those around you, at a coffeeshop, the gym, the store, the airport, even at church, may they see our unhurried life and see Christ in us, may they see our desire to say no to this world to say yes to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, and may they surrender to Him.

We can never be ready for whatever God throws our way if we are not choosing to honor Him with our lives.

I believe that one reason that I have chosen to remain in Christ is because I have seen what it would be like to leave His side, I have felt the agony of what it be to be separated from him forever.

When Christ returns how will he see you, what will he say to you? “Well done, good and faithful servant share your Master’s joy…” or will he say, ‘depart from me I never knew you.”

Last section.

“And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory , so that your faith and hope are in God.”

Some words I didn’t know fully or grasp meaning of.

futile: incapable of producing any useful result; pointless. (fruitless. vain. worthless. ineffective. idle. empty. leaky.

We can listen, take notes, do all the things but if we are missing the KEY gift God has given us to live by then all that we do is vain. When we walk in the undeserved gift of grace and mercy that flow from God, everything we will do will be to proclaim the excellencies of who He is and what He has done. We will never leak we will only give the full of what He has given us, we will love to the full of how much we know he loves us, we will show grace and mercy to the extent that He has extended it to us in a way that we will never understand here on earth but in eternity. He died so we can live.

We have been given a gift.

We have been given a second chance.

We have been given something we can never repay.

All we are called to do is to conduct ourselves in such a way where He is glorified and magnified, where He is lifted higher than anything else we lift. nothing should be higher than Him.

May we stay lit, He is returning and this time here you will not get back. Our next destination is either ETERNITY WITH GOD or Hell with the prince of lies.

Choose Holiness your eternity depends on it!