{"id":5959,"date":"2020-09-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-26T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/?p=5959"},"modified":"2024-10-08T15:15:24","modified_gmt":"2024-10-08T15:15:24","slug":"day-34-the-secret-of-holiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/2020\/09\/26\/day-34-the-secret-of-holiness\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 34: The Secret Of Holiness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>\u201cWho may ascend into the hill of the LORD? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, nor sworn deceitfully\u201d\u2014Psalm 24:3-4<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u201cDemons envy the favor you have with God, and angels gape in wonder at your status in God\u2019s presence. And it\u2019s all because you have embraced His call to holiness!\u2026This pursuit of holiness is not a burden but rather a profound privilege. Happy holiness is one of the quiet secrets of the kingdom\u2014a purity of heart that opens the pathway to the greatest heights of communion with God.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cHoliness has but one source, the Holy One. Holiness has to do with proximity to the throne. The seraphim are called \u2018holy ones,\u2019 not because of who they are but because of where they are. They are \u2018holy ones\u2019 because they live in the immediate presence of the Holy One! I am holy only to the extent that I abide in His holy presence.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u201cI used to define holiness more by what we don\u2019t do, but now I define it more by what we do do. Holiness is found in drawing near to the holy flame of the Trinity\u2026\u2019For the LORD God is a sun\u2019 (Psalm 84:11). As my Sun, the Lord is my light, my warmth, the one around whom my life revolves, and He is the one who brings forth fruit from the garden of my life. His Spirit waters my life, His word nourishes my life, and His face is the power that causes the fruit of my garden to grow.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u201cWhen David repented, he acknowledged he had missed the presence of God\u2019s Spirit which had become so precious and so fulfilling to him. Yearning for a return to the former intimacy with God, David pled, \u2018Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me\u2019 (Psalm 51:11). This was the desperate cry of a man who learned from personal experience that the Spirit of God, above all else, is holy. He dwells only with those whose hearts are directed toward holiness. Holy men live in the presence of the Holy Spirit.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cHoliness is much more than simply clean living. <\/strong><strong><em>Holiness is a life lived before the throne of God\u2026<\/em><\/strong><strong>John lived in the presence of God\u2014which is why Jesus called him \u201cthe burning and shining lamp\u201d (John 5:35). Just and holy men cause kings to fear. They\u2019re not just pure; they also burn with the flame that emanates from their fiery abode around the throne.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u201cWhen a holy man or woman prays, explosive things happen. We don\u2019t pursue holiness for the sake of power, we pursue holiness for the sake of love. But those who pursue holiness out of affection for Jesus become very influential in the courts of heaven. James 5:16 links holiness and prayer: \u201cThe effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.\u201d&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u201cIt says that the Lord Jesus was \u201cdeclared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead\u201d (Romans 1:4). In other words, it was Christ\u2019s holiness that precipitated His resurrection\u2026You can\u2019t keep holiness buried forever. Even if you feel dead and buried under the weight of God\u2019s disciplining hand, devote yourself to His holy presence. Regardless of your shattered dreams and deferred hopes, live in the secret place of the Most High. It is the secret of your redemption. As you love Him from your grave, you are setting powerful spiritual forces into motion.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cThe longer you try to keep a holy man buried, the more force must be exerted to keep him there; and the more force that\u2019s exerted to keep him buried, the higher his resurrection will eventually be. Keep Joseph buried too long, and he\u2019ll rise to the heights of the palace.\u201d\u2014Bob Sorge&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>My Prayer<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u201cI will rise again. Yes Lord, that\u2019s Your promise to me. I cannot be buried forever. Whether through physical death or otherwise\u2014once I stay connected to You, I will rise. Holiness cannot be buried. Death cannot hold me down in the grave once I live in close proximity to Your Spirit. You resurrect Your holy children. As Your holy child, I believe I have a special place with You and I know You hear me specially when I pray to You, because I bear Your holy nature in me. Thank You Lord, because I am credited with holiness, not because I do not fail, but because I accept the work of Christ on the cross for me. His atoning sacrifice makes me acceptable in Him, and my daily walking in close proximity to Him, also further cements my holiness in Him. I am not made holy because of things I do or don\u2019t do. I am where I am and who I am, because of my love for You; but moreso, because of Your love for me, Lord. Amen.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Challenge<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stop trying to be holy by walking by stricter laws of \u201cdo\u2019s and \u201cdont\u2019s.\u201d Agree that you can never be holy enough by your human effort. Concentrate on getting closer to Jesus as a Person, and your holiness will manifest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cWho may ascend into the hill of the LORD? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, nor sworn deceitfully\u201d\u2014Psalm 24:3-4 \u201cDemons envy the favor you have with God, and angels gape in wonder at your [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-50-days-pilgrim-challenge","category-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/50-days-pilgrim-challenge.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5959"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5960,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5959\/revisions\/5960"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}