Question of Holiness

Hi, As of late ive been devouring the book of Romans. The themes that have most struck me are righteousness and justification by faith alone. The issue of holiness has been in the back of my mind and I'm sure to some degree my raising has some to do with this question, but, wouldn't holiness run paralell to righteousness and justification? E.g. Holiness is imputed to us through Jesus' sacrifice as is righteousness and justification?Feel free to dope slap me if this is a silly question, my mind is reeling from the fact that i know nothing as i ought and the majority of what i know is a jumble of theological cherry picking.

I would suggest backing up a bit. How do you define faith? Is it simply a belief and requires nothing on your part? Is it simply an intellectual consent to agree with the Bible?As far as imputed righteousness goes, I'm including a link to Dan Corner's website that i pray will be helpful to you. Dan Corner's websiteI would suggest you pray about these things before dealing with holiness. Just my suggestions. :-)

I suppose i am speaking about a standing more than an attitude. if holiness is absent than we will not see God and i've heard many a man expound on this verse and it troubles me at times. As per faith, i understand that faith in the Lord Jesus will produce good works not vice versa. As for holiness...i think have answered my own question. Holiness being an attitude that produces a standing or the other way around--the end result is the same. Holy actions brought forth through holy stnading and attitude. Not us trying to produce it, rather it producing its self through us? Am i amking sense? I can say that it is raining outside, carry an unbrella and even prentend to be wet and cold from the rain but that "belief" does not nessecarrily equate to it really raining. However if it is raining and i have no umbrella tha the rain will enveitablly produce the action that i seek to imatate. Huh.. . kind of like those that have a form but deny the power to make them what they seek to be. . .am i making sense? :-(I am to me all of a sudden, someone must be praying for me. ;-)

My thoughts are that holiness is to be seperated to the Lord, set apart by the Spirit. Rom 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renwing of your mind.Ps 119:11 Your word, O LORD, I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against theeBe changed but changed into what and by whom ? Is my surrender just the acknowledgement of grace or a recognition of my life hidden in God, in Christ Jesus. I have died and no longer live means my life is over and has to be finished because everything born of Adam is cursed to die and that will never be lifted. My life now belongs to Christ, it is His and not mine and a life a holiness is to be set apart by God's own hand, He has inscribed me on the palms of His hands. I know and am known, seeing darkly for but a short time. Holiness is living in the light, cleansed and reborn.His,Rich

ALL OF YOU SAINTS HAVE GREAT ANSWERS. IF THE PERFECT ONE LIVES INSIDE US, AND WE KNOW THAT ALL BORN AGAIN SAINTS HAVE JESUS LIVING INSIDE US. THEN HOLINESS HAS TO COME WITH OUR DEATH AND HIS LIFE. VERY GOOD ANSWER RELEWIS111. MAY GOD BLESS ALL OF YOU RICHLY WITH HIS LIFE.APOSTLEPAUL.

Hi David I suppose i am speaking about a standing more than an attitude. if holiness is absent than we will not see God and i've heard many a man expound on this verse and it troubles me at times. Faith is active and I believe we're on the same page but it requires specific actions (i.e. more than a mental assent). Hebrews 11:8 By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. You see it played out throughout the scriptures. My pastor calls it "faithing" because it's an active versus being a passive thing.As stated in the thread to be holy is to be set apart. I'm set apart to be a servant of Jesus. That's the joy of my heart. It's not drudgery or legalistic in any way. Sometimes it's painful but that's only when I'm resistant to what he wants to do. It is a work of the Spirit as we yield to Him. Every follower of Jesus has been bought with a high price. (1 Corinthians 7:23 Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men.) Surely it's going to cost us everything to follow Him as well. Blessings to you David...

Well Said, my friend, well said. It's not drudgery or legalistic in any way. Sometimes it's painful but that's only when I'm resistant to what he wants to do. It is a work of the Spirit as we yield to Him. Every follower of Jesus has been bought with a high price. (1 Corinthians 7:23 Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men.) Surely it's going to cost us everything to follow Him as well.

Brothers and sisters, I enjoyed your posting so I rejoice for reading it. I had only pray for that spiritual attitude at my own Church.Just last night I was awake after listening to "If any man be in Christ" from Leonard Ravenhill. What a blessing. The topic that has been in my heart for the past 6 months has been the issue of (holiness, perfection, righteousness etc.) I have been a Christian for almost 2 years now but assuredly I tell you that I was dead for 1 and a half years of my life as a Christian. This was because it was only revealed to me that I have to walk exactly as Jesus did to "see God" or "walk with Him" or to be apart of the bride.When i first heard the message of "overcoming the devil" or "power over sin" or "victory in Christ" i was so weak spiritually that the Devil told me that this old man was of the Devil.......but simply that voice was not of God for I was living in sin. It was such a shock to me because my Church had just told me "try be like Jesus" INSTEAD OF "BE LIKE JESUS". Without a message of power over sin we are as good as dead. Wow how often the verse from our brother Paul is thrown out there "I am crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me".......how little we believe it and see the severe implications.The severe implications are simply either you die now by your own choice, OR you will not be apart of the bride and will be a martyr after the rapture by decapitation. Christ offers us death first then life.Family, this is my first post at this site; I am now in my life coming to fully realize the fullness of what is mean to be a Christian. To die to self, to die to the world is to be alive in Christ.How do we be perfect? By allowing the Perfect One to live within us by surrendering to Him!!!!God bless u! Overcome the world family!

HELLO ED, I AGREE WITH YOU A 100%. IT HAS TO ACTED UPON JUST LIKE FAITH OR ITS NOT REAL FAITH. I'VE READ DAN CORNER'S ARTICLES AND HAVE EVEN BEEN ON HIS SITE. I LIKE WHAT HE WRITES. YOU KNOW I'VE STUDIED ALOT OF PEOPLE AND THEIR INTERPRETATIONS ON HOW WE SHOULD LIVE AND I'VE COME TO THIS CONCLUSION. TAKE EVERYTHING THAT'S SCRIPTURE THAT THEY'VE INTERPRETED CORRECTLY AND PUT IT ALL TOGETHER, THEN WE COULD LIVE LIKE JESUS WANTS TO LIVE. SOLD OUT TOTALLY UNTO HIM, ALL THE WAY. JUST LIKE YOU QUOTED ED JESUS AND MORE JESUS IN LIFE THAT'S ALL WE NEED. ONCE AGAIN BLESSINGS FROM OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST. THE REASON I USE APOSTLEPAUL IS, JESUS IS FIRST, AND I LOVE ALL THE APOSTLES, BUT PAUL WAS POWERFUL IN A WAY THAT'S NOT LIKE THE REST. HE DIDN'T LET THE CHURCH DO AS THEY PLEASE WITHOUT CORRECTION, AND HE DIDN'T LET SIN STAY IN HIS CHURCHES WITHOUT REBUKING IT. IF IT HAD TO BE REBUKED FACE TO FACE. JUST THOUGHT I'D THROW THAT IN.

As for holiness...i think have answered my own question. Holiness being an attitude that produces a standing or the other way around--the end result is the same. Holy actions brought forth through holy stnading and attitude. Not us trying to produce it, rather it producing its self through us? Am i amking sense? Holiness is Just God's nature. God is Holy. And we as believers in Christ have been "made partakers of the Divine Nature."Practical holiness is just God expressed. It is God's nature wrought into us and worked out in us.How can I, a sinful man, be made holy? Is it by determining and setting myself to live by a certian moral standard? Is it by my determination to eliminate all "unholiness" from my life and living? Is it by me doing anything?Or is Holiness just the Person of Christ whom we believe into and who indwells us?. Is not my work to believe into Him? To recieve Him and to expect as I look to Him in faith, to work Himself into me and to constitute me with Himself and to express Himself in me and through me?Is not our work to labor to obtain and eat Christ as the "Bread of Heaven"? To assimilate Him through prayer and spending time in His Word, and calling on Him and asking Him to grow in us and fill us and be expressed in us?Is it not true that the more time we spend in fellowship with Christ in His Word, the more we partake of Him and the more we find Him in our spirit strengthening us the more we like to spend time with Him? And does His Presnence within us not cause us to desire more and more to live by Him and to express Him? Is not holiness just the issue of His Life within us?Surely we must yield to His working and surely we must deal with those things which the Spirit within us shines on. But how can we who by nature love sin, deal with sin except by the Spirit's work within us convicting us and enlightening us and causing us to hate sin and to love Him and desire Him?Our great need is revelation. To know that we do not have to strive to be holi but rather to rest in Christ who is within us as our holiness. We have to experience Christ daily as our food, our drink, and our nourishment. And through this means we become constituted with His Life and His holiness becomes our life and living.When we have the revelation of Christ as our holiness, we quit trying to be holy. There is nothing more anoying than someone trying to be holy and rightouse. Instead, we call on the Lord and confess, "Lord Jesus, I thank you I have no need to make myself holy. I thank you that you are within me and You are already holy. I thank you that you delight to express yourself through me. I call on you Lord to be yourself in me."When we take this position and call on the Lord He does not fail to work in us. We find something within us, but not "of us" working. We experience His Life within us and we are kept, we are saved in His Life from unholiness, from temptation, from whatever it is.Graftedbranch

I use to "want to" do my own thing and do things for others that would benefit me. I did everything with motives that would make me happy or so I thought. Then one day I believed in Jesus Christ and His Spirit was birthed in me and all motives began to change. We have all heard it before, when we get our new life in Christ, He gives us a new "want to". All His want when He was on this earth as the Man God, all He wanted was to please His Father and do His will. With the knowing that Christ brings into our being and our mind by the Holy Spirit and the Mind of Himself, that is Christ in us the Hope of Glory, we have the same "want to," that Jesus Had, and that is how we become the works of Christ. Line upon line and precept upon precept, "for the life I now live I live by the Faith of the Son of God, who loves me and gave Himself for me." This is our rest, to know that The Love of Christ shed abroad In our hearts will give the only Person credit that deserves it, and that is Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, Who of God has been born again in us and we are becoming more like Christ everyday, not by our works but by His. May we all rest in our agreement with Amen's that never end. Amen is not the end but just the beginning of the next Amen.In Christ: Phillip

I don't think we have to 'work' to feed on Him, but, we do have to want to, or, it's the easiest thing to neglect.... We have been called to eat and drink with Him ... we have to attend at the table....Brother, I was just expounding the verses. It is the Lord Himself who said. "Labor for the food that does not perish". He then said, "This is the work of God, that you believe on Him whom He has sent". Then He said. "I am the Bread of Life".This is the Lord's teaching. And a consideration of the verses shows that feeding on Him as the Bread of Life is our work which is also our believing in HIm. That is by feeding on Him we grow in faith. And our work is to believe into Him.And our feeding on Him as the Bread of Life is a reference to the daily Manna which the Isrealites enjoyed in the wilderness.And Christ is the Manna. And the Manna was the Bread of heaven.Our Lord taught this. Graftedbranch