Today’s verse of the day, courtesy of bible.com (YouVersion bible app) is:
Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.
Hebrews 12:14 NIV
I’m sure you’ll all agree this is hugely important, to live in peace, with everyone, is something a vast majority of us fail to do at the best of times. However, it is something we all strive to do. Perhaps with a sprinkling of extra patience, or with an increasing understanding of ourselves and others. We are learning to appreciate differences and the uniqueness of character and person, through controlling our behaviour and being more mindful of it, of other peoples, our surroundings and the circumstances of others. By listening more than imposing our perspectives of things over others, or by being more graceful in our actions and our words – this small set of examples are all something we can work towards easily if only we would put effort into it.
What is not so easy to quantify, or to achieve, is being holy. What does it mean? How are we to do that? It is a tricky thing, to be holy, but scripture provides us with clues and encouragement.
For example,
19 I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. 20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6 19-23
Holiness is not something we start with; it is something we seek to obtain, and we may never fully achieve it if we don’t listen to the one person who can lead us there, Jesus.
Seek out the Lord, our God, through our Saviour Jesus Christ, so that in everything that we do, we bring glory to His name, to the Lord God Almighty. Follow the perfect example of Jesus as best as we can for we are not perfect, but do not be afraid of our imperfections because God knows us through those as much as he knows us in any other way.
We are clothed anew in righteousness through the holy spirit when we are baptised, to enable us to serve as best we can, to allow us to walk the correct path, to be free from sin so that we may be Holy, in mind, in body, and spirit.
We are born to serve, just as Zechariah’s song shouts out loud and clear in verses 74-75
74 to rescue us from the hand of our enemies,
Zechariah’s song
and to enable us to serve him without fear
75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
So in all things, as Jesus said:
37 … ‘“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.’
Matthew 22:37-40
So that we may “Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy.”
God bless us all.
PrayBee 