Holiness – 2 Corinthians 7:1

Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

As a single woman working in Corporate America, I found few soul mates sharing my beliefs on personal holiness, especially regarding sexual purity.  The concept that sex was limited to marriage was almost universally incomprehensible, even to some, though blessedly not all, who identified themselves as Christians.  If I attempted to articulate that God reserved sexual relationships for those who had joined their lives in matrimony, my colleagues dismissed me as an anachronism.  They would have considered one with two heads less strange.

Yet, our Father chose us in Christ that we would be holy and blameless before Him.[1]  Having been born again through Jesus Christ, we must live by His standards, no longer indulging in former lusts.  We are to be holy in all our behavior,[2] as He, the Lord our God, is holy.[3]  We are to allow the Spirit to renew us in the spirit of our minds, each of us putting on a new self, which the Lord created in righteousness and holiness in His likeness.[4]

Our God is majestic and awesome in holiness,[5] and we cannot reject His exhortations to pursue holiness without rejecting Him.[6]  Therefore, stand separate and apart from the unclean, impure, and immoral, knowing that as you do, you will take on the purity of Christ, and the Lord God Almighty will welcome you into His presence.  He will delight in you, declaring you His own possession,[7] greeting you as His cherished son or daughter.[8]

My values are said to be passé

Carried over from a forgotten day

Truth and virtue are simply out of vogue

It’s stylish now to play the rogue

The beliefs upon which I was raised

Leave the modern set aghast, amazed

“One does not need God to say what’s right

Each can do what’s good in his own sight”

But God’s law is perfect, right, and true

Unchanged by anything man may do

So I choose to walk in the path truth lights

Having set my hope on eternal sights

[1] Ephesians 1:3-4

[2] 1 Peter 1:14-15

[3] Leviticus 19:2

[4] Ephesians 4:23-24

[5] Exodus 15:11

[6] 1 Thessalonians 4:7-8

[7] 1 Peter 2:9-10

[8] 2 Corinthians 6:17-18