Perfection/Pursuit
Understanding holiness is so vitally important in our walk with God and growth in Christ because, often times, what we feel is impossible to achieve, we either don’t try at all or give up along the way.
When we feel defeated from the start, we often chalk it up as an impossibility. What we don’t know or understand concerning the word really does have the potential to hurt us.
What you need to understand, though, is that holiness is NOT perfection. It’s continual pursuit.
I pray that this one statement brings you into a place of freedom and a place of rest.
Man-made and man-defined religion has taught you that being like God means that you have this long list of Do’s and Don'ts that must be performed and fulfilled without ever getting anything wrong. They have taught you that you are only like God when that list is perfectly fulfilled. A list that has actually kept many people from even WANTING to know Jesus!
Many have been made to believe that holiness is something to be achieved, as if it could ever be done in our own strength or in our own might. When it’s taught that holiness is something to be achieved, we live a life of striving, failing, and (eventually) being exhausted. When we understand that holiness is actually something to be pursued, then we live our lives in pursuit of the ONE who is holy. That is when we become more and more like Him!
I want to encourage you today to no longer beat yourself up when you miss it, get it wrong, or even when you fail or fall. Jesus made provision for that!
Sometimes the sentence/punishment that you’re trying to give yourself allows the enemy in more than the actual sin/failure/mistake does. Apostle Paul reprimanded believers for thinking and living this way because he said true righteousness will never be found in your good works or perfection. It can only be found in Jesus.
So, in the name of Jesus, and with His authority, I declare over you today that you are loved, you are forgiven, and you have the permission to forgive yourself. You can be and live free because of God’s mercy.
“I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I PRESS on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me.
- Philippians 3:12 (NLT)