Holiness
In an unholy world

Malcolm Muggeridge is attributed with saying that the depravity of man was proved every day in the newspaper and electronic media. No one reading this need be told we live in an unholy world. This is in sharp contrast to God Who is holy in all His power, truth, justice, love, and knowledge. He is holy, holy, holy! And, when He enters in His people by faith He marks them off as separate and distinct from the rest of the world. God living in you creates holiness in an unholy world.

Each of us claimed by God as His are a holy temple. Paul tells the Corinthians:
Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. (I Cor. 3:16,17)
So, if you are a Christian, how do you live holy in an unholy world? It is not easy. We live in a global community. Instantly we know what goes on all over this globe we live on. We can travel to every nook and cranny of this world. We are slaves to technology…our phones, TVs, I-pods, CD players, and various other electronic gadgets. We listen to each other, talking heads, entertainers and political pundits, but not God. Is it any wonder we have difficulty cultivating holiness. The only holy One is the last we talk or listen to.

Because God is holy and the world is not, the latter tries to marginalize the former. In some parts of the world it is by active persecution. World lovers beat, torture and kill Christ lovers. In Europe and the US, we allow the impulses of religious pluralism, relativism, multi-culturalism and political correctness to keep holiness from being an option. We privatize our faith. We take God and His holiness completely out of circulation. The unholiness of the world does not have to compete with the holiness of God. And, that suits the world just fine, thank you.

You and I have to get back to basics. We belong to the holy One. It behooves and becomes us to live holy lives in an unholy world. Living holy lives is not easy and it is not an accomplishment of ours. It comes as a result of being more and more yielded to our Lord and Savior thus allowing us, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to become more and more like Christ. In Paul’s prayer for the saints in Ephesians 3, he prays:
…that according to the riches of His glory, He may grant your to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being. Eph. 3: 16 [ESV]
This petition is all about sanctification. We are always weak; it is only by His power working in us by the Holy Spirit that strengthens us and permits holy living.

But, it does happen. And, we must be ready to forsake the unholy world as children of the holy God. Not to do so is an affront and abomination to the God Who died for us. Listen to a voice from another time, Robert Leighton, who demands Christians be severed from the common, unclean and profane world:

It is no matter that the profane world (which so hates God that it cannot endure His image) so mock and revile; it is thy honour to be…more vile, in growing still more like unto Him in holiness…renouncing of the lusts and pollutions of the world, both in heart and life…filling of their room with the beautifying graces of the Spirit of God…[being] like Him Who hath called them. Consider Whose you are and you cannot deny that it becomes you to be holy. Consider your near relation to the holy God…You were running to destruction in the way of sin, and there was a voice together with the Gospel preached to your ear, which spake into your heart, and called you back from the path of death to the way of holiness, which is the only way of life. He has severed you from the mass of the profane world, and picked you out to be jewels for Himself. He hath set you apart to this end, that you may be holy to Him…It is sacrilege for you to dispose of yourselves after the impure manner of the world, and to apply yourselves to any profane use, Whom God hath consecrated to Himself.

He has chosen you for Himself out of the world. Is it too much to live for Him and not the world? That is holiness in an unholy world.