I must admit to something first and foremost. Growing up I never really thought about "holiness" in context of myself or even others. That was a term limited to God and God alone. I knew that I was a sinner and that God was the only one who could save me from my sinful nature. But I never thought, not even once, that I could be holy as my Father is holy. During these years of emotional roller coasters and constant replies to alter calls, I saw holiness, not as the core, which is love, but the pieces that make up holiness.
These pieces are not the core, and yet, I thought of them in this way. I realized very quickly that it was impossible to follow all of the rules in the Old and New Testament. That part was pretty obvious to me. The next piece that the book mentions is purity. I also must admit that I have always struggled with this part. Purity in itself however is not the core, but I often dwelled on the idea that I needed to be pure in order to be a Christian. As you can imagine, this lead to depression, and loads of other psychological issues that I have been working through over the years. The 3rd and 4th elements of holiness were the pieces that my youth pastor was constantly speaking on. The idea of being "set apart" and "totally committed" are both awesome concepts when you are in middle and high school because we all wanted to be unique and we all wanted a cause to hold onto, something we could grasp and preach about. However, these two things together are pretty much empty. They simply do not satisfy.
We were told to "speak truth in love", and yet we were not taught how. This turned ugly when kids claimed to be speaking truth in love, and weren't. In fact, their words were almost hateful. The missing element ended up being the very core of the gospel, the very essence of Christ himself: Love. It seems so obvious and yet I am just now learning what it means to really live a life of intentional love. This idea, that Christlikeness is love, and therefore we should live a life of love, has been buried by church camp, retreats, and so called "awesome programming". It has only been recently that I have noticed my generation realizing that it is not about the elements, but the core. Kids my age, myself included, are finally starting to realize that legalism, purity, being set-apart, and total commitment are empty without Christ's love.
A friend of mine had an interesting thought to share the other day, she said that there is a revelation sweeping our generation of church leaders, and that we, as a whole body are being refined. I would go even further in saying that we ARE being refined, but it is by Christlikeness, being a life of intentional love, that is refining us. It is as though chunks of our old selves are being wiped away by the gospel of love. This perfect love is in fact perfecting us.
It is not purity, legalism, total commitment, or even being set-apart that is truly making the difference, it is loving the way that Jesus loved: living every moment with the intent to love one another (being the body/community), and even loving those outside of our comfort zone. This, in effect is loving Christ the way that He loved us. This is what holiness truly means. And this is a cry out to my generation: May we love the way that Christ loved so that we may lovingly keep His commandments, purely love one another, realize that we have been set-apart to love the way Christ loved, and that we may be completely and entirely committed to this love that will change our communities, our cultures, and the very lives in and around us.
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