Raise The Standard!

 “Holiness has an object: the object of holiness is God.” –Reverend Andy Rubin

In the year of King Uzziah’s death, I saw the sovereign master seated on a high, elevated throne. The hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs stood over him; each one had six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and they used the remaining two to fly. They called out to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord who commands armies! His majestic splendor fills the entire earth!” (Isaiah 6:1-3, NET Bible)

In this past Sunday’s sermon, Pastor Andy took a few minutes to remind us of our theme for this year: Pursuing Holiness, Promoting Healing. He shared with us some points that I’d like us to reflect on for today:

v  God is absolutely holy: when we pursue holiness, we pursue Him.

v  When we pursue the holiness of God, we will be changed into the image of Christ.

v  When we are changed into the image of Christ, our actions will be reflective of His character.

Bronx Bethany Church of the Nazarene is in the middle of its autumn Care Group cycle. Our small groups are learning a great deal about the character of the Spirit of Christ, based largely on Galatians 5:22-23. But let us remain cognizant of the other list: Galatians 5:19-21, in which we see a checklist of the works of the flesh that run counter to the fruit of the Spirit.

Our pastor noted that if we have been on board with our church’s theme since January of this year, then by now we should be better reflections of Jesus than we were ten months ago. I would like to encourage all of us to read Galatians 5:13-26 today. As we take inventory of the areas of our lives where the character of Christ is (or is not) present, let us appeal to our great God to help us live according to His standard: the standard of holiness.