Holiness or Love?~Julie

Have you ever had an encounter in the Word?  I mean have you ever had something happen where the Word of God, a Scripture, a passage, a story suddenly comes to life in vivid 3-D in your mind and heart?  The Lord speaks so clearly to your situation through His Word that you are marked by that Scripture!  These encounters become a place where you go back to and draw on the refreshing truth of that particular Scripture again and again. And these experiences remind us that truly God’s Word is living and active and every bit as powerful and applicable today as it was when it was written.

I had an experience like that as I sat down to meditate on Ephesians 1:4.  I’ve been working through meditating on and writing about each verse in Ephesians after going through the Martyn Lloyd-Jones teaching on Ephesians 1. 

Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love...  Ephesians 1:4

So, on one particular day it was time to meditate, chew on, and think upon Ephesians 1:4.  The interesting thing about this day was that I had just read a Facebook post that had me rattled.  You know those posts?  The ones that you read and wish that somehow they hadn't ended up in your feed?  This one was a challenge to the church, and it disturbed me.  Not because of the challenge being issued, or because the church doesn't need to be challenged in lots of ways, but because there was something that was just off in what this person was saying.  I couldn't quite articulate it and it had me disturbed.  I often feel the need to figure these kinds of things out. 

The person was hammering the need for the church to LOVE.  Yes.  Absolutely.  I get that.  But, then he wasn't just hammering love, he was actually downplaying holiness and he asserted that the church is stuck on a list of “holiness” things that aren't even critical.  He even said, “The bible says we will be known by our love.  Not our holiness.”  Hmmm... it does say they will know we are Christians by our love, but isn't holiness important, too? Rattled.  This just rattled me but I couldn't fully get to the “wrong” of it. 

So, with this turmoil in my mind, I set it aside to spend some moments in meditating on the Scripture.

Again, let's actually read these words in Ephesians that jumped off the page to me that day: even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love...

Suddenly I could see both of these words “holy” and “love” in the same verse and it all collided in my mind. 

(Note: I realize that some translations put the phrase “in love” with the following verse relating to how God predestined us.  The teaching we had just heard from Martyn Lloyd-Jones however puts the “in love” phrase in verse 4 referring to how we are before the Lord.)

We are CHOSEN by the Lord.  Why has He chosen us?  We are chosen for a purpose.  And, it is clearly stated here.  We are chosen so that we SHOULD BE holy and blameless.  This is huge.  We aren't chosen to be before Him in love only.  We are chosen to be holy and blameless before Him. 

This means that the value God places on our holiness is EQUALLY as valuable to the state of our hearts in LOVE.  We aren't just chosen to be holy and blameless... We are chosen to be holy and blameless before Him IN LOVE. 

The problem with this person's blast at the church was suddenly clear.  You CANNOT downplay holiness in favor of love JUST as you cannot downplay love in favor of holiness.  The point is we are chosen for a purpose and the purpose is to be something (holy and blameless) and somewhere (before Him) in a specific state of being (in love). 

We are chosen to be holy. 

What does this mean?  This doesn't mean that we are chosen to live according to a set of rules and dot our “i's” and cross our “t's”.  This means we are to be set apart.  It means we should look different from the world around us.  We should have peace in the face of storms; we should love in the face of hate; we should give even from our lack; we should live according to the Word and Will of God, not according to the popular words of men or the ever-shifting will of culture or even according to our own will.  We should stand on the Word of God even when that's not popular.  We should do all things in love and with grace.

We are chosen to be blameless.

This is not something we can accomplish by ourselves.  We are with blame...  We ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  Even the best person alive cannot actually be blameless before the Lord.  His perfection and glory are so far above and beyond even our best efforts.  We can only be blameless through the blood of Jesus Christ.  So, being chosen to be blameless isn't something we can do, but rather something we receive and walk in.  We walk in the salvation that has been purchased for us at such a great price by Jesus' blood.  This alone makes us blameless before God.

We are chosen to be before Him.

We are chosen for a destination.  When God calls us to Himself it's not just to live on this earth like drifters with no destination.  We are called to be before the Living God of all creation.  He is in an actual place and He desires us to be before Him, with Him, in His presence.  In John 17:24, Jesus expresses this desire.  He prays to the Father saying, “Father, I desire that those you have given me would be with me where I am and that they may see my glory!”  This is incredible!!!!  This is our purpose!!!  To be before him!

We are chosen to be in His presence IN LOVE.

We aren't dragged into His presence kicking and screaming.  We are called and we stand before Him IN LOVE.  One of the most critical things I believe that the Father will want to see in our lives when we stand before Him in eternity was did we learn to love as He loves?  Did we grow in love?  Jesus said the greatest commandment is “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.  This is His desire to have a Bride who is wholehearted in LOVE!! 

So, we must not deny holiness or love.  Surely, we don't want to get caught in legalism in which we try to operate from a list of rules and rely on our ability to keep God's commandments.  The Facebook guy was right on that.  But, we also don't want to just sound like the hippy movement and talk about “love man” that really means nothing even close to true love.  If we are truly walking with Christ, then BOTH of these attributes should be increasing in our lives.

Jesus is our example and He NEVER violated the Father's will or His Word.  He was truly Holy.  Perfectly Holy.  AND, He ALWAYS operated with a motive of love.  He never violated either of these things in the way He walked. 

We should pursue Christ and remember we are chosen for a purpose and we can walk as holy people, in love before the Lord!  

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