It is the stark warning that Jesus gives in Matthew 7.21, "Not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father who is in heaven."
According to Jesus entrance into the kingdom of heaven is contingent upon doing the will of the Father. This begs a deeper question, a question that I have heard countless people ask, "What is the Father's will?" Or more personally, "What is God's will for my life?"
For many the issue of God's will seems to be mysterious, something which they seek to discover and or which they pray God would reveal. On one level I think that God does have a specific or unique will for each individual, but on another level I think that God has a general will for all of his children, and that it actually isn't all that mysterious, doesn't need to be discovered, and has already been revealed. In fact there are several places in the Scriptures where God's will is spelled out for us. There is one in particular where God's will could not be any clearer.
"It is God's will that you should be sanctified..." 1 Thessalonians 4.3
There it is...God's will revealed to us...that we would be sanctified. To be sanctified means to be "holy" or set apart. The Father's will is that we would be holy, set apart for him to display his love and goodness to the world. Continue to read after verse three and Paul actually gives some specific and practical ways in which we are to be set apart.
Yet, while God's will is that we should be holy it almost seems as if "holy" has become an ugly four letter word in the church today. In the past few decades the church has become more grace-oriented. The prevailing message is "come as you are," "God can use you in spite of your brokenness, in spite of your mess," "we're all sinners and none of us are perfect," I am thankful for this message and for the abandoning of a more legalistic message that tends to put up more barriers than it does welcome people in.
And yet I fear the pendulum perhaps has swung too far. I fear that our message is coming at th expense of God's call to be holy. While God does invite us "come as you are" and while we are all broken and messy sinners the message of Jesus' gospel is clear that God can fix us and make us whole, has saved us from sin and reconciled us to himself. In short, he has called us to be holy, but more than that through the cross and resurrection he has made us holy.
Why is it then we're only told that we're dirty sinners saved by a loving God and not that we are holy because God has made us holy? Why is it that often times the use of the word holy is negative? Have you ever been called or called someone "holier than thou?" It wasn't a compliment!
God's will is that we should be holy. In fact we read in the Bible, "be holy as I am holy," which suggests that its possible. God couldn't call us to be something for which its impossible for us to be. The good news of Jesus is that though we are sinners and cannot be holy on our own God, through Jesus, defeated the sin that plagues us, and by the Holy Spirit we can be made whole and live holy set apart lives for God.
Let's redeem the word holy. Its a great word. It reminds us that there is something distinct, unique, and compelling about following Christ, something at which the world looks and says, "there's something different about those people but in a good way."
You are a sinner. You are a mess. You are broken. Jesus has defeated sin. Jesus cleaned up your mess. Jesus is making you whole. Be holy. It is God's will for your life.
