Quotes from the book
Holiness is our goal, our destiny, our portion. It expresses the very essence of the nature and character of God and describe the highest level spirituality obtainable by man. Holiness is just plain wonderful. Certainly no genuine believer whatever argue with that, right?
Wrong! There are plenty of believers who recoil at “Holiness teaching,” finding it unscriptural and contrary to the Gospel. How can this be?
For some, it is a simple reaction of the flesh. They don’t want to be challenged. They don’t want to be shaken out of their comfort zone or call to take up their cross and deny their own wills and desires. They don’t want to be confronted with the high standards of God and would rather live in their snug shelter of self-justification then come out and hear the truth. They are like the rebellious Israelites of old who were unwilling to listen to the Lords instruction.
They say to the seers, ”See no more visions and and to the prophets,”Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions. Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the holy one of Israel! Isaiah 30:12-17
For such people, the Holy One of Israel has a word: we can’t or else (see Isaiah 30:12-17)
But for other believers, rebellion, self-will, and love of the world are not the problems at all. The problem for them is equate holiness with legalism, finding it binding and not beautiful. In their minds, it is a system based on fear and characterized by joyless judgmentalism, producing futility instead of freedom. They perceive the “holiness message” to be a man-made brand of religion governed by law and not love, a mere following of rules without relationship. That’s not holiness! Holiness is being like Jesus, in thought, word, and deed. As Samuel Lucas noted, “the essence of true holiness consists and conformity to the nature and will of God”
