Titus 2

Last year a guest minister challenged our church family with this:

You know, when we talk about holiness often we connote it to mean, “I shouldn’t do this” and “I shouldn’t do that.” The 10 Commandments display the nature of Jesus Christ. They have both a negative and positive side. The negative is what I should not do; the positive is what I should do, what I ought to do, who I am, what I should pursue, and why I should pursue it… What is it to be holy? What sets us apart?

I think there can be the tendency in many of us to major on what holiness is not. This isn’t all wrong. After all, I need to know that fornication, lying, drunkenness, disobedience, and so on is sin; and what are my behavioral, mental, emotional, and spiritual boundaries.

But what is holiness? And what does holiness look like for a younger woman? for an older woman? for an unmarried woman? for a mother? for a daughter?

If we only know the answers to what holiness is not, we are living in a vacuum. And I can assure you that the enemy of our souls and the philosophies of this world love a vacuum.

There is so much God has for us! He has more vision for you and me– in whatever season of life we may find ourselves– than we could ever come up with on our own! God doesn’t want holiness to look like a big empty outline simply keeping things out of your life; He wants to fill that outline with mindsets and habits and choices and activities so that you are a living and breathing demonstration of the nature of Jesus.

We ought to be viewing holiness as being like Christ. He was not just a list of do’s and don’t’s, but the fulfillment of the law. He was love and joy and peace and patience. He reached out to the needy and brought clarity to the confused. He loved his disciples. He was radically obedient. He laid down His life.

Holiness looks like children obeying and honoring their parents. It looks like wives respecting their husbands. It looks like caring for widows and orphans. It looks like surrendering to God even when it costs us. It looks like blessing those who curse us. It looks like cleaning our homes and cuddling our babies.

It looks like Jesus.

The fact that I am a woman does not make me a different kind of Christian, but the fact that I am a Christian does make me a different kind of woman. For I have accepted God’s idea of me, and my whole life is an offering back to Him of all that I am and all that He wants me to be. Elisabeth Elliot, Let Me Be A Woman