Martin Llyod Jones once said, “If you do not desire to be holy, I do not see that you have any right to think that you are a Christian.” That’s the kind of truth we no longer hear from our pulpits. There was a time when men of God would proclaim God’s Word and its difficult but unassailable implications to nourish the souls of their congregants.
The vast majority of preachers today know nothing of this kind of preaching, but fall into the category of those who love to tickle itching ears (2 Timothy 4:3-4). They say what people want to hear to make them feel a little better about themselves. A message imploring personal holiness is all but unheard in our churches today.
The desire to be holy should drive every aspect of a Christian’s life. What you pursue reveals the deepest desires of your heart. We’ve become too callous in our response to sin. Sin should never be a momentary regret, but seen as a hideous cancer. When we desire to be holy, we will aggressively cut away anything offensive to our King (Matthew 5:29-30). Why would you want to do anything you know is going to grieve your Lord and Savior (Ephesians 4:30)? We lack holiness because we lack the discipline and desire to allow the Holy Spirit to cultivate it in our lives.
When God told His people to be holy as He is holy (1 Peter 1:15-16), it was not a casual suggestion. This was a direct command and set the bar for how we are to live. It should terrify us to live in any other way. God said to be holy and we laugh in His face and carry on living as we always have. We live according to our selfish desires instead of His perfect design (Romans 12:1-2). If you fear God, you will fear ignoring Him and living in disobedience to Him. The desire to be holy will keep us from His wrath (Hebrews 12:14).
It’s bad enough when an individual ignores God’s Word, but when society at large rejects Him, you get the world we have today. The insanity of our modern culture did not happen overnight. It is the product of decades of people who profess to love Jesus, shirking their duties and being too casual in their pursuit of holiness (James 4:4). For too long, God’s people have turned a blind eye to the slow but steady creep of immorality into our lives and churches. We liked the comfort and ease such accommodations afforded. We lost the desire to be holy.
I don’t know if society can turn back from its path to destruction. If it can, it will only be by the incredible mercy of God (2 Chronicles 7:13-14). There are numerous Biblical examples of cultures that went too far and suffered the great wrath of God. Perhaps that’s the case for us today. Either way, it does not absolve any of us from living our lives with a desire to be holy. We don’t have to go along with the ways of the world. We must choose to live in a different way, a holy way. Today, our date of meeting Jesus face to face is another day nearer (Romans 13:11). When you stand before Him, will you be ready? Will your life show that you lived for Him or in opposition to Him? Each of us must choose this moment to desire to be holy throughout the rest of our lives.