Are we Holy? Who is Holy?

[dawnsday]

Here is a copy of the thread that motivated this:

Young lady, I want you to stop making excuses. I should have been more specific. I understood it as Jews are God's chosen people, so they were meant to be holy, yet they were not, so God had to offer his son up.


Quote:
What in God's Word tells you that you have to die to be Holy?
"why do you call me good, not one is good but our father"


Quote:
Sweet mercy. Where do you go to church? I need to speak to the pastor who has confused you about the call for Christians to be Holy as their Father in heaven is Holy.

You are a Saint of the Most High. Of course you're supposed to be Holy.

I know I am supposed to try, but I fail and fail miserably as do most of my friends...which is why we talk about our sins...to help get over them.

um, the last church I went to was the Reformed Church of America. I have tried AoG, pentecostal, non-denom., catholic, lutheran, presbyterian, protestant, and baptist.

still haven't been baptised cause i still haven't found a church i am comfortable in.



Quote:
You can only be Holy because of the sacrifice of Christ. His Work is done so you can be Holy RIGHT NOW.
how? oh wait whole other conversation...i'm totally gonna go make another thread....

So, I thought no one but God was Holy. What are everyone else's thoughts?

 

[dayhiker]

Holiness has to do with being seperated, set apart. Originaly meeting of the Greek word, hagios, as I understand it.

So God is holy because He is set apart from His creation. God calls us to be holy also. That primary is to not worship idols but to worship God as I read the Bible.

dayhiker

 

[WashedBytheSon]

Here is a copy of the thread that motivated this:



So, I thought no one but God was Holy. What are everyone else's thoughts?

God is Holy, and He is what makes any of us holy and righteous. We are neither without God blessing us as such.

 

[BlueWidow]

Can non-Christians be holy as well, given that God can work though non-Christians just as he does Christians?

 

[holo]

We are holy. As Christ was, so are we in this world. We are saints, righteous. We are children of God. We are new creations.

 

[BlueWidow]

Regardless of how ya'll act and treat people?

 

[WashedBytheSon]

Regardless of how ya'll act and treat people?

To answer your first question, the only ones who are holy are the ones God deems holy. To answer the question I quoted, how we act and treat people should reflect our faith in Christ. Obviously none of us are perfect, so you won't see this 100% of the time from the same Christian, but that is why we need Christ to begin with.

 

[holo]

Regardless of how ya'll act and treat people?

Yes. Holiness doesn't come from my behaviour, but from the Lord. God's standard would have to be alarmingly low if I could actually live up to it and achieve some state of holiness by doing something.

Any child of God is holy, because God Himself is holy. Compare it to rich people - their children are automatically rich, too. But if the children don't know, or don't care, that they're rich, nobody forces them to act like it either.

I live and act holy because I know I already am holy. Holiness is my starting point, not my goal.

 

[dawnsday]

So, then, we aren't actually holy or sinless or good enough, but just that God sees us without our sins???

 

[holo]

So, then, we aren't actually holy or sinless or good enough, but just that God sees us without our sins???

The way I see it:

If God says you are righteous, you ARE righteous. It doesn't matter how you feel about it, really. God decides how things are. There was no light, and He said "be light!"

I am actually and factually holy and pure and perfect and blameless and sinless.

 

[IamRedeemed]

Yes, holiness doesn't come from our behavior, but obedience does. Obedience is what God is looking for, which is an act of the will, based on a choice, a decision that starts in the heart of a man. If we love the Lord, we should naturally, being now born of the Spirit, desire to obey Him as this is how we show Him and the world that we love Him. Head knowledge is great, but out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. (I am sure we can apply that also to "the body does") Remember, Jesus said it is not what goes into a man that defiles him, but rather what comes out. (what was He talking about? He was talking about what is in the heart, coming out in our speech and in our behavior.) So, will the lost be able to pick the fruit of righteous living that comes from a life dedicated to the Lord, that allows Him to work in it or will they pick from our trees the fruit of hypocrisy?

1 John 3:6-8 says, "Anyone who continues to live in him will not sin. But anyone who keeps on sinning does not know him or understand who he is. Dear children, don’t let anyone deceive you about this: When people do what is right, it shows that they are righteous, even as Christ is righteous. But when people keep on sinning, it shows that they belong to the devil, who has been sinning since the beginning. But the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil."

Yes. Holiness doesn't come from my behaviour, but from the Lord. God's standard would have to be alarmingly low if I could actually live up to it and achieve some state of holiness by doing something.

Any child of God is holy, because God Himself is holy. Compare it to rich people - their children are automatically rich, too. But if the children don't know, or don't care, that they're rich, nobody forces them to act like it either.

I live and act holy because I know I already am holy. Holiness is my starting point, not my goal.

 

[dayhiker]

So, then, we aren't actually holy or sinless or good enough, but just that God sees us without our sins???

yup, that's the way I see it ...

 

[dawnsday]

yup, that's the way I see it ...

then people shouldn't be running around claiming to be holy.

 

[dayhiker]

then people shouldn't be running around claiming to be holy.

I think we can say we are holy in Christ. But if the person is saying we are holy because of what we are doing, then I'd say that was wrong.

 

[IamRedeemed]

God is not counting our sins, that is an "outward" sign of the condition of our hearts. Man looks on the outward appearance, but God judges the heart. It is out of the heart, that the fruit of obedience or disobedience will bear itself. God knows every thought and every intention. He knows our struggles, as well as our complete disregard for His will, and whether or not we actually desire to serve ourselves and our flesh. We can fool man some of the time, but we can never fool God, He knows every intent of the mind and heart of man.

Our job is not to be sin conscience but relationship with God conscience. The sacrifice that Jesus made for us,
enabled us to now have an intimate relationship with the Lord. Under the new covenant, we get to call Him Father. This was not a reality for the OT saints.

Stumbling or struggling with a sin is not the same thing as walking in sin due to arrogant disregard for what the Lord has said, and a willful choice to walk in disobedience.

In other words, when we submit ourselves to the Holy Spirit, we enable Him to search our hearts, removing sin, and roots that are not of God. He illuminates those things to us, and we confess them and willfully renounce them. We submit our will to Him from our hearts and that is what allows Him to do the work in us that produces good works that come out of us. The Holy Spirit will not force purification on us, it must be the desire of our hearts that are turned toward God.

Romans 8:13
"For if you live after the flesh, you shall die: but if you through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live."

So, then, we aren't actually holy or sinless or good enough, but just that God sees us without our sins???

 

[ReformedChapin]

God is not counting our sins, that is an "outward" sign of the condition of our hearts. Man looks on the outward appearance, but God judges the heart. It is out of the heart, that the fruit of obedience or disobedience will bear itself. God knows every thought and every intention. He knows our struggles, as well as our complete disregard for His will, and whether or not we actually desire to serve ourselves and our flesh. We can fool man some of the time, but we can never fool God, He knows every intent of the mind and heart of man.

Our job is not to be sin conscience but relationship with God conscience. The sacrifice that Jesus made for us,
enabled us to now have an intimate relationship with the Lord. Under the new covenant, we get to call Him Father. This was not a reality for the OT saints.

Stumbling or struggling with a sin is not the same thing as walking in sin due to arrogant disregard for what the Lord has said, and a willful choice to walk in disobedience.

In other words, when we submit ourselves to the Holy Spirit, we enable Him to search our hearts, removing sin, and roots that are not of God. He illuminates those things to us, and we confess them and willfully renounce them. We submit our will to Him from our hearts and that is what allows Him to do the work in us that produces good works that come out of us. The Holy Spirit will not force purification on us, it must be the desire of our hearts that are turned toward God.

Romans 8:13
"For if you live after the flesh, you shall die: but if you through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live."

 

[Zaac]

then people shouldn't be running around claiming to be holy.

If you are a Christian, you are Holy. You can't be indwelled by the Holy Spirit and not be Holy.

That doesn't mean that your stinking, roting flesh will not sin, because it will.

But if you are a Christian, God views you as blameless as the blood of Christ has atoned for ALL of your sin, past, present and future.

"That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing: but that it should be holy and without blemish" Eph. 5: 27

You, as a Christian, right now, are Holy because the work of Christ is DONE.

The Bible says 13Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. 14As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy 1 Peter 1:13-15

As believers, we need to be "set apart" ---HOLY---from the world unto the Lord. We need to be living by God's standards, not the world's.

God isn't calling us to be perfect, but to be distinct from the world. 1 Peter 2:9 describes believers as "a holy nation".

It is a fact! We are separated from the world.We need to live out that reality in our day-to-day living, which God tells us how to do in 1 Peter 1:13-16.

If you are indwelled by the Holy Spirit , you are HOLY.

Some of us may not live like it, but absent the Holiness that comes from being washed in the Blood of the Lamb, you cannot be in God's presence.