Holiness vs. Moralism

Lately we have been blessed by the ministry of Arturo Azurdia and although most of his messages are challenging, convicting, and saturated with truth, one passage gave me a new perspective on holiness. I will try (with removing some contextual references that would not apply in this format) to pass this on to you, and I hope it enriches you as it has me these past few days.

"God wants a holy people, not a moral people mind you, but a holy people. Is there a difference between the two? Absolutely, positively; to capture it most clearly, it's the difference between the pharisees, the most zealous of all the religious leaders in ancient Isreal and the Lord Jesus Christ himself. There is the dichotomy you see, they were moral, He was Holy. Morality is the negative concept, it defines itself in terms of what one refrains from doing. More often than not it's preoccupation is with externals. Holiness on the other hand is the much more positive concept. Like its related term, it is much more holistic. It embraces the externals to be sure, but it doesn't stop there it's far more penetrating, far more thorough going, far more comprehensive.

Let's illustrate the difference;

The moral person abstains from wrong actions; the holy person hates the very thought of doing wrong.
The moral person is driven by what people percieve him to be; the holy person is consumed with what God wants him to be.
The moral person mindlessly adheres to a cold list of do's and don'ts; the holy man ponders what brings the greatest pleasure to his Holy Father.
The moral person keeps a meticulous record of all his good deeds expecting by them to win the favor of God; the holy person greives that nothing he ever does even for God is completely free of sinful and selfish motives, and so he knows then that every blessing he ever receives from God is pure grace.
The moral person lives by his own definition of what is right and wrong and he delights to impose that definition upon other people; the holy person allows the word of God to direct his life and in anything beyond that, he gaurds the silences of the Bible and relishes the freedom that Jesus Christ has purchased for His people, honoring the differences that that freedom allows among those that dearly love the same Saviour.

Holiness effects the heart, it effects the mind, it effects the action, the will, the conscience, the motives. Holiness effects the totality of a person. What he is, where he goes, how he feels, what he thinks.

Unfortunately we are living in a time when the vast majority of our american evangelical subculture is morality driven rather than holiness driven. Because we have failed to rightly understand that mans real problem is rooted in an evil heart our preoccupations have been focused on the actions that flow from that evil heart rather than on the heart itself. Consequently if we can just get a person to clean up his act just a little bit, get a bit more moral we as the church can slap ourselves on the back in congratulations and conclude that we have won the day. If we could just get prayer back in public schools, if we could just shut down all of the planned parenthood clinics, if we can just elect more christians to congress, it's morality driven not holiness driven revealing our failure to understand the radical difference between moral improvement and life from death. The record of the sacred text tells us that God's great delight is fulfilling His purposes in the world not through the means of a moral majority, but through the means of a holy minority. It is holiness that God wants for His people, not morality." (Arturo G. Azurdia III, Engaging the Culture, John 17: 17-19, Session 2, compliments of Monergism)

Does any of this define you, if you said no, have someone check your pulse.

God, drive the stench of this world out of us, your people, Amen.

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All,

I'd like to use this site for the Bible Study again. Updated, thoughts and things we would like to do in the future. We can post here and proof read before sending to Dead Saints. It's just a thought, but this site had a more personal touch for our group. Dead Saints is more for those outside our group. Let me know what you think.

Please consider the following as well. Go to Heart Cry and pray about supporting a missionary as a group. I'd like to adopt a Missionary as a group and raise money for him if that is something you all would be interested in?