Saved… 

Part 11 – To be holy (series continued)    

So how can we be holy like God is holy, when we “were alienated from him and were enemies in our minds because of our rotten behaviour,” Colossians 1:21?

Well, it was God who got the ball rolling because “he reconciled us to himself through the death of Jesus’ physical body, so we can stand in his presence holy, blameless and without a single fault,” verse 22. It was “the power of God,” therefore, 2 Timothy 1:8, “that saved us and called us to a holy life,” verse 9, and “not because of anything we have done.” We had nothing to do with it. It happened purely “because of his own purpose and grace – grace given to us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time.” 

So here was God, before we even existed, already setting in stone what his goal for us humans was. He would set us humans apart from the rest of his creation to make us as holy as his Son (Romans 8:29), so that his human creations could share the same glory his Son has (John 17:24, Hebrews 2:6-11). And he made absolutely sure his plan would work out “in accordance with his will and good pleasure” (Ephesians 1:5,9,11) by handing over the reins to his Son (9), and not leaving anything up to us.  

And rightly so, because we humans would have a nasty habit of either losing sight of his purpose for us, or resisting it – starting with Adam and Eve, continuing with Israel, and also in what we ourselves were like “not so long ago,” Titus 3:3, when we too “were stupid and stubborn, dupes of sin, ordered every which way by our glands, going around with a chip on our shoulder, being hated and hating back.” Anything but being holy, in other words.  

But fortunately, verse 4, thanks to “the kindness and love of God, our Saviour stepped in and saved us from all that” by “giving his life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us his very own people, totally committed to doing good deeds,” Titus 2:14. 

Our calling to be holy, then, is the commitment God made to us. Being holy is what he called us to be, and “He who calls you is faithful. He will do it,” 1 Thessalonians 5:24…(more on this tomorrow)