In the experiences of life that I have had and grown up in, holiness was always an achievement; something to strive after and succeeded in. It would be what the book describes as the slide scenario, a climb up to reach the top but inevitably we will slide back down and have to start all over again and try on another clean slate. I have been challenged to find that this is no longer true in my own life, through my relationships with this family Adsideo. Love is what I have felt and experienced and cannot deny about this family. Not just their own personal love for me but Gods own love for me extended through my brothers and sisters in Christ. From my day-to-day experiences with this community to living in a communal house I am discovering that we are holy when we love one another as Christ loves. Holiness is not an individualistic thing, it requires to be pressed into each other’s lives and to live out this life in a posture of loving one another and serving one another as Christ has loved us and served us. “We are holy as God is holy when we love as God loves…the core meaning of holiness is love.”
This love I have experienced from this family is beyond friendly greetings and a good conversation. It is intentional beyond any other kind of love I have experienced before. I have been pressed into my inner being that it is uncomfortable. This love that they have for me and I for them, and the love that overflows unto our neighbors, is what makes us holy. As Mildred Wyncoop said “ Holiness is not the absence of sin but the presence of love.” It has never been about having the cleanest slate, but about us getting down on our hands and knees and crawling through the mud and troubles of life for one another to demonstrate Christ’s love by being present in one another lives.
Christ is there all along the way by his presence of the Holy Spirit as it helps guide us through this journey. He guides us through each moment of our lives, nudging us towards what is right and true. By acting upon on how he guides us is where we choose to love and choose to love how he would love. We are made holy by dying to our self and desiring his desires over our own desires. By choosing to love as he has loved.
There is freedom I have found in this posture of holiness of being enlightened to realize it is beyond following the rules of a law; it is in relationship with him and loving others as he loved them. Knowing he is here to guide us each step of the way, knowing that we could not walk this journey with out him. We are made holy by him because he loved us first.
Cassie, thank you for being able to express so well your thoughts on this response paper. I appreciate all your words and thought provoking simplicity, thanks.
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