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Holy Living
by A long time ago when I lived in Las Vegas, I told a friend of mine that I wanted to be more "holy." She remarked that she really admired me for that because she'd never known anyone who desired that. This friend was a new Christian. I think somewhere along the way after we've received salvation, we've lost our way. We've lost our perspective. It's so easy to do, really. I think we try so hard to do the things deemed "acceptable" that we've forgotten how to truly live for the Lord. It's more than going to Bible Study, attending church, and memorizing Scripture. It's obeying it. We lose our joy and wonder why. But we can't straddle the line between "world" and "holiness" and wonder why God feels distant to us. We forget to take a good hard look at our own lives and see what might be holding us back, or weighing us down. Living a righteous life is truly what brings us our joy. It doesn't tell us in the Bible that we're not supposed to watch that movie, listen to that music, yell at our families, starve ourselves in order to be skinny, or laugh at other people. But it does tell us to love others as ourselves, to guard our hearts, to remember that our body is a vessel of the Holy Spirit, and to watch what comes out of our mouths. We are going to lose our joy in the Lord if we don't grow God's fruit in our hearts and lives. We are representatives of the Lord. How we live our lives, conduct ourselves, and what we do with our time is all a representation of God. It should demonstrate holy living not worldly living. If things are right in our life then our lives will feel more joyful because there won't be a lot of unholy character or living that will need to be refined out of us. We won't need to be sifted as much. We live in a world that is ready to be at war with us. Satan is ready (and willing) to take us down. The temptations may seem small at times, but with each one that wins with us, it pulls us down and away further from God. I want to live a life above approach. I don't. I'm not perfect. But I'm going to keep striving for that goal. I'm going to strive to love God more than I love the fun things of the world. I'm going to strive to live a holy life so that I don't lose my perspective on things. I don't want to be sucked into the world's system but to always be able to see and take it for what it is. I think Christians have lost the desire to live holy lives. We've lost the fight somewhere along the way. We look at little sins as simply "mistakes" and fail to repair those little cracks in our lives. Let's take back what God had in mind for us. We can live victorious lives by simply determining to live a holy life for our Lord. It just has to be important enough to us to want it. ~Dionna Sanchez is Founder of EmphasisOnMoms.com and freelance writes. She also blogs at http://beautyinthestorm.blogspot.com Contact her at [email protected] Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |