The Inconvenience of Holiness

I am sitting here contemplating personal holiness. God commands us in 1 Peter 1:16, “Be holy, because I am holy.” It is stated so simply. There is no obtuse angle here. God is not trying to pull a fast one on us. The simple fact is God expects us – He commands us – to be holy. Yet, we seem to have this incredible propensity to try to muck it all up. We want to find ways to not be holy. Don’t get me wrong. We want what God has to offer. We want His many blessings. We love receiving from His hand. It’s just that holiness is so…. inconvenient.

I am reminded of the nation of Israel in 1 Samuel 8. They approached the man of God, Samuel, and demanded that he appoint them a king. Samuel had grown old. Now, they wanted a king to be their leader. Samuel prayed earnestly to the Lord. He couldn’t believe what was happening. Yet God said, “Give them what they want. They’re not rejecting your leadership; they’re rejecting Mine.” Then God told Samuel to warn the people about how costly rejecting God would be . Samuel told them, and yet they still insisted on a king.

It is the reason they gave for wanting a king that told the whole story. They said, “[We want a king] that we may be like all the nations.” (v. 20) Israel wanted to be like the world more than they wanted to be like God. Isn’t that how it is with us and holiness? We’d rather be like everyone else. Oh sure, we like God. We enjoy His presence when we worship together. We love to study the Bible a little bit here and there. We enjoy learning new truths about God. But putting all that stuff into practice at work, and in our families, and in our communities? Really? That’s asking a lot. That’s…. inconvenient.

And therein lies the problem with holiness. God does not call us to holiness in order to burden or punish us. Holiness is not a curse that robs us of the pleasures of this world. No! Holiness is a gift from God. Because God wants us to be like Him, He calls us to holiness. Because He wants us to experience His fulness in our lives on earth, He calls us to holiness. Because He knows that a life of purity is best, He calls us to holiness. Because He wants us free from the burdens and consequences of sin, He calls us to holiness. Holiness is God’s gift to you and me. His command for us to be holy is an invitation for us to daily draw near to Him and experience life transformation.

Do some evaluation with the Holy Spirit today. Do you want to be like Jesus? Do you want to be more like the world than God? Only you can answer these questions. But never forget that holiness is not some burdensome inconvenience foisted on us by God to rob us of the pleasures of this world. No, holiness is a gift from God to us. It is an invitation to draw near.