Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Why is Holiness a Hot Topic?

Chapter 2: Standards Have Not Gone Out of Style

Chapter 3: Biblical Holiness is Radical Holiness

Chapter 4: The Test of Holiness: Obedience

Chapter 5: It Can Be Done!

Chapter 6: Measuring Your Holiness

chapter one

Why is Holiness a Hot Topic?

Have you been hearing more about holiness these days than you heard, say, a few years ago? Just about everybody has. I want to begin this small book on holiness by trying to explain why this may be so.

Not too long ago I sensed that God was directing me to put the subject of holiness toward the top of my preaching and teaching agenda. This was new for me, since I had never taught much on the subject previously. Soon after I began to do this, however, something unusual started to happen. Let me explain.

I have been a public speaker for more than 50 years. Over those years I have come to the honest realization that I am not considered a particularly outstanding speaker. At best I may be a notch or two above average. The pattern has been that people may come up to me after I speak and politely thank me for the message, but usually only as a prelude for discussing some issue which I have raised. When we do evaluations of conferences, my ranking by the attendees is rarely, if ever, at the top of the list of the speakers that they have enjoyed during the week.

Things are noticeably different when I now speak on holiness. When I started speaking on holiness I began to get telephone calls, notes in the mail, people stopping me in the hallways, all of them expressing unusually high praise that I "dared" to speak on such a theme. Just recently, for example, I received a note from North Carolina saying, "Your talk tonight on holiness was the most refreshing message I heard in the whole conference, and I praise the Lord that He has laid it on your heart to share this with the body of Christ."

Lifting the Banner of Radical Holiness

When things like this happen, I begin to wonder why. Why does there seem to be such a hunger out there these days for lifting the banner of radical holiness? An obvious starting point for answering the question might well be an assumption that it must be something that the Holy Spirit has begun saying to the churches in our day. Jesus says, "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches" (Rev. 2:7).

The whole body of Christ finds itself in a new place in the 2000s, not only here in America but around the world. Never has the Christian church seen such an ongoing harvest of souls, such a dramatic outward manifestation of supernatural power, such a worldwide prayer movement, or such compassion for the poor and needy. We are members of the first generation ever to experience the live possibility of completing the Great Commission of Jesus Christ in our lifetime. But, perhaps most significantly of all, we are seeing the divine government of the church coming into place before our very eyes.

Prophets and Apostles Are with Us

A process that began after World War II has now resulted in a new-found recognition of the gifts and offices of apostle and prophet in our churches today. The movement called the New Apostolic Reformation has been bringing about a most radical change in the way of doing church since the Protestant reformation. It is currently the most rapidly growing segment of Christianity in every continent of the world.

My interpretation of current events in the Christian world is that our recognition of prophets and apostles completes the divine government of the church. Apostles and prophets are supposed to be the church's very foundation (see Eph. 2:20). With the government in place, God is now probably willing to entrust the body of Christ with revelation, supernatural power, and spiritual equipment that has not previously been known, at least by churches across the board.

This relates directly to fulfilling the Great Commission, as I have mentioned. We are realizing that in the process of spreading the Gospel, especially in the darkest regions of the world which are now coming into light, spiritual warfare is at the very heart of any significant advance of the kingdom. People cannot hear the Gospel because the "god of this age" has blinded their minds (see 2 Cor. 4:3-4). Aggressive spiritual attacks on Satan and his principalities have visibly been paying off. We are finally realizing that winning the air war is a prerequisite for an effective ground war. If the powers of darkness are pushed back through the air war, the ground troops—missionaries, church planters, evangelists, and pastors—will be able to gather in an abundant harvest.

Holiness and Holes in the Armor

The 1990s was the decade, above all others in memory, for launching aggressive spiritual warfare on the highest levels. One of the things we have learned as we have gone to the front lines is that we must put on the full armor of God before the battle starts. Paul says, "Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil" (Eph. 6:11). Most of us try to practice this and we verbally clothe ourselves with truth, the helmet of salvation, the gospel of peace, the sword of the Spirit, and the rest. Teaching on the armor of God abounds.

The individual whom God most used some years ago to introduce my wife, Doris, and me to strategic-level spiritual warfare was Cindy Jacobs, author of Possessing the Gates of the Enemy (Chosen Books). Soon after we met her, I heard Cindy say something that I have never forgotten: "We can put on the whole armor of God, but if our hearts are not pure under it, we have holes in our armor!" Satan and his principalities of darkness will be among the first to discover those holes, and we become extremely vulnerable to his fiery darts. The armor of God carries only a one-day warranty, so working on this needs to be a constant and daily part of our lifestyle.

Reducing the Casualties

Spiritual warfare is truly warfare. Because this is the case, there will always be casualties. But I consider it my role as a leader in this movement and the international apostle over the Strategic Prayer Network, to do what I can to help reduce the casualties to a minimum. Experience has shown that there are two major causes of casualties in high-level spiritual warfare. One is to miss the timing of God. I deal with that issue elsewhere. The other is a lack of holiness, which is one reason I am writing this book. My prayer is that God will use this book to raise the water level of holiness throughout the body of Christ to the point that our vulnerability to the attacks of the devil will be practically zero.

A Theological Stumbling Block

If I am not mistaken, a major obstacle or stumbling block preventing many believers from living a daily life of holiness according to the plan of God has been the pervasiveness of what theologians would term the Reformed doctrine of sanctification. My personal theological orientation is Reformed. I was indoctrinated with Reformed theology in both Fuller Theological Seminary and Princeton Theological Seminary during my formative years. However, it wasn't until I began moving in areas of high-level spiritual warfare not too long ago that I gradually realized that the Reformed doctrine of sanctification was not going to cut it. It became clear to me that the Wesleyan view of holiness as seen, for example, in the Church of the Nazarene or the Salvation Army or the different branches of Methodism or the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana) or others would provide us a much more appropriate approach to holiness, especially in terms of helping us to close whatever holes we might have in our armor.

I would not doubt for a moment that God is holy, but I also believe that you and I can be holy as well. ... This is not an unattainable dream, it can be a present-day reality in your life and mine.

I was previously taught that I should strive for holiness, but that I would never actually make it. If I lived a good

Christian life, I could expect to see some progress in my sanctification as I matured in Christ, but I could never be holy because only God is holy. Reformed theology, rooted in the teachings of such as Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, and others, has developed an unsurpassed doctrine of the holiness of God. Holiness as an attribute of God is a very important teaching, although it is not my topic in this book. Personal holiness is my topic, and the reformers have not helped us much in this area.

Worship leaders who know I am going to speak on holiness in their meetings frequently try to set the stage by having everyone sing what is probably the best-known song on holiness: "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty; early in the morning my song shall rise to Thee." This is a very meaningful and moving song, but notice that it is a song about the holiness of God, not about our personal holiness. In fact, one phrase in the song clearly reflects what I have been saying about the Reformed doctrine of sanctification! "Only Thou art holy." If it is true that only God is holy, it then follows logically that no human being could be holy, in the sense of not committing sin.

I would not doubt for a moment that God is holy, but I also believe that you and I can be holy as well. 1 Peter 1:15 puts them both together and says, "As He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct." This is not an unattainable dream, it can be a present-day reality in your life and mine.

chapter two

Standards Have Not Gone Out of Style

I recently read in the newspaper that a certain American judge is engaged in a running battle with his superiors because they want him to take down the Ten Commandments from the wall of his courtroom. In most of the history of our country, the idea that the standards expressed in the Ten Commandments should not enter into a judge's legal decisions would have been regarded as nonsense. No longer! Many people now think that such standards are a thing of the past. The judge is regarded by many Americans as hopelessly old fashioned.

Much of the book of James deals with living a holy life. James is very specific about behavior. He says, for example, "If you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic" (Jas. 3:14-15). He goes on: "Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God" (Jas. 4:4).

God Lets You Make the Choice

James also says, "Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded" (Jas. 4:7-8).

There are four important active verbs in this passage. I say "active," because we have a choice. We can either do them or not. God is not going to do them for us, but He definitely is watching us and hoping that we make the right choices. Living a holy life does not just automatically come with the package of getting saved. It only happens to those who first are born again, and then decide that they will do what they know God expects them to do. The active verbs are:

♦    Submit to God

♦    Draw near to God

♦    Cleanse your hands

♦    Purify your hearts

The first two verbs, "submitting" and "drawing near" to God, have to do with relationships. As I will repeat many times, relationships, especially our relationship with God, are the starting point on the road to holiness. The second two verbs, "cleanse" and "purify," have to do with behavior. I think it would be reasonable to assume that "cleanse your hands" refers to our outward behavior that all can see, and "purify your hearts" refers to our inward attitudes. Both are important because they always go together. If relationships start the road to holiness, behavior carries us to our destination.

How do we go about cleansing our hands and purifying our hearts? How do we reach our destination of a holy life, day in and day out?

♦    Is it our relationship to God? Yes, this is the starting point, but it is not enough.

♦    Is it our inward attitude? Yes, we will not be holy without the right attitude, but it takes more.

♦    Is it the presence of God? Yes, God is a holy God and His presence is essential. But even God's presence is not enough. Take Adam and Eve, for example. There was a time when they were holy and there was a time when they were no longer holy. God was present both times.

What, then, makes the difference? The difference is adhering to standards. In the Garden of Eden, God set standards for Adam and Eve. It was up to them whether they kept the standards or not. If they had chosen to keep them, the whole human race might have been different. But they chose to violate the standards, and we have been suffering the consequences ever since. My point is, the choice was theirs!

Keeping Faith Alive

Adam and Eve had faith in God. After all, He came to visit them personally on a regular basis. They knew Him and they talked to Him. Faith in God, which establishes our relationship with Him, is essential to holiness. But keep in mind that faith can be dead. What gives it life? Only proper behavior brings faith to life. That is why God told Adam and Eve that the day they misbehaved, they would surely die. They decided not to obey Him, and even though they still had faith, it became a dead faith. Only obedience could have kept their faith alive.

When it is stated so simply, it is obviously true. That is why James says, "Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, 'You have faith and I have works.' Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works" (Jas. 2:17-18). There are some today who say, "My relationship to God is a personal matter. What I do is between me and Him. You have no right to stand in judgment over my behavior." Those who would say this are among the ones who consider standards like the Ten Commandments as old fashioned.

Affirming that standards validate relationships or that works validate faith is strong teaching. It always has been, it always will be. Martin Luther, for example, could not stand it. He, as many of us are, was strongly influenced by his times. But nevertheless, he was so disturbed by James's idea that "faith without works is dead" that in one of his writings Luther declared that James was nothing but "an epistle of straw." Luther apparently thought the New Testament would have been better without the epistle of James.

Is Our Behavior No One Else's Business?

Luther lived hundreds of years ago. But even today, many will react against the teaching that it is essential to keep standards of behavior in order to please God. For thirteen years I taught the 120 Fellowship adult Sunday School Class in Lake Avenue Church in Pasadena, California. Besides teaching in Fuller Seminary and writing books, it was my main grassroots ministry outlet over those years. I had around 100 adults of all ages in the class. I rarely accepted invitations to speak in other churches, because I felt that I needed to be with my people. Since the church had around 5,000 members, the adult Sunday

School classes were the places where individual church members found their fellowship and spiritual nurture. I was like their hands-on pastor. I loved to be with them Sunday after Sunday, and they loved me.

Living a holy life does not just automatically come with the package of getting saved. It only happens to those who first are born again, and then decide that they will do what they know God expects them to do.

The people who chose to come to 120 Fellowship were those who enjoyed being on the cutting edge. I was constantly testing new ideas and experimenting with new forms of ministry with them. We went through many paradigm shifts together and we regarded ourselves as one big family. All went smoothly until I began to teach on holiness over a three-month period. Before I finished, no fewer than five families had decided to leave the class, and two of them were the two most influential families in the class! That is when it really came home to me that this teaching on standards of behavior as essential for holiness is regarded by some as excessively strong teaching. Those who left the class did not want me pushing the idea of personal holiness farther than affirming our relationship with God. Their behavior was to be regarded as their own business, no one else's.

We Live in an Age of Relativism

America has entered an age of relativism. Our culture is telling us that if you sincerely believe something is right, it must be right, and others should not criticize. Let the others do what they think is right. Take the Ten Commandments off the wall! Standards are out of style. If this were the attitude of unbelievers only, it would be one thing. But moral relativism has crept into our churches as well.

Today's best known church researcher is George Barna. He is a committed Christian, but his task is that of a sociologist, not of a moralizer. Keep that in mind when you read this quote from his recent book The Second Coming of the Church: "The Bible clearly states that true believers should be readily distinguished from nonbelievers by the way they live. Yet, the evidence undeniably suggests that most American Christians today do not live in a way that is quantifiably different from their non-Christian peers, in spite of the fact that they profess to believe in a set of principles that should clearly set them apart."[1]

How is this mindset expressed? I am going to quote one of America's highly-visible Christian youth leaders, but I am not going to mention the name. My purpose is not to embarrass an individual, but to quote what is taken as common currency, especially among believers born after 1965. This leader says that teenagers today "think personal holiness is living up to a standard, and they either get frustrated and give up or lower the standard, so they can feel more comfortable." So if holiness does not involve living up to standards, what, then, is it all about? He goes on, "They rarely understand that personal holiness is not external behavior, but an intimate relationship with Jesus born out of God's grace." There apparently is no problem in the minds of many of today's Christians in separating belief from behavior.

This is exactly what Barna is finding. To put it in other terminology, Barna has found that Christians score high on faith. They profess to believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord. But they score low on works. What would James say about this? Since faith without works is dead, what we are seeing today is obviously not a very vigorous faith. We live in a Christian culture that seems to major on belief but minor on behavior. I believe that things would be different in our country if every judge and every school teacher and the President and members of the cabinet each posted the Ten Commandments on their walls and took the pains to read them from time to time!

What Is Holiness?

The Greek word for holy is hagios. Its root meaning is "to be set apart." It carries two nuances: Set apart from and set apart to. The predominant emphasis in the New Testament is that we are set apart to God. But this does not preempt the important issue of what we are set apart from. According to George Barna's research, American Christians today are not set apart from much of anything. But, deep down, they know that they should be. Realizing this is probably a chief reason why so many Christians today are hungry to hear a message or to read a book on holiness. In their heart of hearts they know that standards have not gone out of style.

And they want to know how their lives can be the lives that God wants them to be!

Notes

1          George Barna, The Second Coming of the Church (Nashville TN: Word Publishing, 1998), pp. 120-121.

chapter three

Biblical Holiness is Radical Holiness

Holiness is a godly quality that we cannot internalize without a fundamental understanding of what the Bible has to say about it. Since standards have not gone out of style, and since we have a deep need to know what the standards for our life are, where do we find those standards? Do we seek a human leader and expect the leader to set standards? If so, we might end up with a Joseph Stalin or an Adolph Hitler. Do we take a vote and agree that the consensus of the maj ority sets our standards? We've tried that and ended up with mass abortions, homosexuality as an alternate lifestyle, and the breakdown of the nuclear family.

We Christians might live in a political system which operates on human standards, but we are also supposed to be "set apart," which, as I have explained, is the root meaning of "holy." Our standards come from our Creator, our Lord, and our Savior. They are written in the Word of God, the Bible. Whatever the Bible says we're supposed to do, we attempt to do because we know that is God's ideal design for our lives. Following the Bible's standards might make us appear to be countercultural, which, in this day and age, may not be such a bad thing. It is impossible for you and me to be everything that God wants us to be without knowing and following God's standards. And if we do it consistently, we will surely be seen as radical!

God's standards of holiness are not something that we have to ferret out in some obscure passages of Scripture. They are clear and plain and unambiguous. And they are repeated over and over again, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. In this chapter, I am going to touch on some of the high points so that we can fix in our minds the idea that biblical holiness is, indeed, radical holiness.

Legalism Vs. Licentiousness

The Apostle Paul wrote the entire book of Galatians to help the believers in the churches of that area understand how to live a holy Christian life. In order to get his point across, Paul had to do a balancing act because he was writing to two very different groups of believers, the Jews and the Gentiles.

The Jewish believers had come to Christ out of a background of obedience. They had been taught since childhood that they were required to obey God's law, and they brought this mindset into the church. On the other hand, the Gentile believers came out of a background of licentiousness. Everything goes! If it feels good, do it!

Throughout the book of Galatians, Paul goes back and forth and addresses both groups. The Jews needed to understand that their godly behavior would be based on their relationships. Paul tells them that the law was given as "our tutor to bring us to Christ" (Gal. 3:24), and that we have become "sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ" (Gal. 3:26). The more the Jewish believers could understand that, the more liberty they would find in their new Christian life.

Right and Wrong

But the Gentile believers didn't need more liberty. Just the opposite. They needed to learn obedience. Being Christlike involves moral standards. It was important that they know the difference between right and wrong. In Galatians 5 Paul is very clear about this. The wrong things are called "the works of the flesh" including adultery, licentiousness, idolatry, drunkenness, and hatred, just to mention a few (see Gal. 5:19-21). The right things are called "the fruit of the Spirit" including love, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, just to name a few of them (see Gal. 5:22-23).

Realizing that his teaching would cause a certain amount of tension, Paul tries to resolve it in Gal. 5:13: "For you, brethren [this part is for the Jews], have been called to liberty; only [this part is for the Gentiles] do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh."

Children and Slaves

The Jews needed to realize that God was their Father (relationship!), and that they were children and heirs of God. The Gentiles needed to realize that God was their Master and that they were slaves. Both are true, and neither one should be either underemphasized or overemphasized. But Paul explains the way that this works out in real life: "Now I say that the heir as long as he is a child does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all" (Gal. 4:1). What does this mean to us today? It means that we have an incredible family-type relationship to God

Almighty and that we possess a divine inheritance. But day-by-day we relate to God as children are supposed to relate to their natural fathers, and obedience to our Father's will, including His standards, is not up for discussion. It is required.

[God] knows that if we choose to obey Him, we will prosper in every way.

Suppose we choose to be disobedient and to violate the Father's standards? We are in trouble! Switching to Hebrews for a moment, we are told to "pursue.. .holiness, without which no one will see the Lord" (Heb. 12:14). This passage in Hebrews 12 mentions that we are sons twelve different times, so there is no question as to our relationship. However, if we are truly children of the Father, we can also expect that disobedience will involve punishment. "For what son is there whom a father does not chasten [punish]?" (Heb. 12:7). "For whom the Lord loves, He chastens" (Heb. 12:6). Why does God punish us? He does it "for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness" (Heb. 12:10). Notice how important our holiness is in the mind of God. He knows that if we choose to obey Him, we will prosper in every way.

Relationships Always Have Standards

A desire to honor standards is an essential part of any close human relationship. Most of us understand it. For example, my most important human relationship is with my wife, Doris. Soon after we got married, I found that she has certain standards. I experimented once or twice in violating those standards, and I found myself in deep trouble. It happened the other way around also, because I came into the marriage with my personal standards as well. Neither one of us wanted to live around a spouse who was feeling violated and wounded. So it didn't take us long to decide that we would honor each other's standards. One of the benefits of that decision has been that, at this writing, we are getting ready to celebrate our 52ndwedding anniversary!

Now, how about our relationship to God? Are there parallels? There certainly are. I must say that the statement of the youth leader I quoted in the last chapter to the effect that our intimacy with Christ counts, but following standards does not count makes no sense to me. God has given us His Word so that we would know what His standards are. How can we maintain a loving relationship without honoring the standards of the person we love? It won't work in a marriage and it won't work with our Lord.

Delineating the Standards

The Bible is not vague on this subject of standards. In fact, every one of the three or four substantial New Testament passages on holiness delineates specifically what holy people do and what they do not do.

Take, for example, Colossians 3, a chapter on holiness. In the middle of the chapter, verse 12, it speaks of the elect of God, "holy and beloved." Preceding this verse is a list of 12 things that holy people do not do, and following it are 12 things that holy people do.

To be specific, holy people avoid fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, covetousness, idolatry, anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language, and lying. On the other side, holy people are characterized by tender mercy, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering, forgiveness, love, peace, thankfulness, marital harmony, obedient children, and working for a living.

These lists are extremely practical. Hardly any believer in Christ would ever say that they would choose to do the bad things in the first list and that they didn't want to be characterized by the good things in the second list.

Avoiding Legalism

Stressing these standards should not be interpreted as legalism. Legalism, unfortunately, has been a very large problem in the body of Christ in recent generations. In Chapter One, I argued that the Wesleyan understanding of holiness is more useful for us than the Reformed viewpoint. However, sad to say, many of the denominations that based their doctrine of holiness on Wesleyan theology around three or four generations ago, allowed their practice to degenerate into legalism. They got to the point where they would evaluate a person's holiness on whether or not they kept certain rules. In most cases holiness was gained by abstaining from such things as make up, movies, slacks on women, dancing, alcoholic beverages, card playing, jewelry, and the like.

Understandably, when the "holiness movement" became associated primarily with this sort of legalism, many good-hearted believers chose to distance themselves from it. Ironically, the legalism perpetrated by many holiness denominations has probably been as much of a stumbling block to the practice of biblical holiness across the body of Christ as has the Reformed doctrine of sanctification. Fortunately, many of the holiness denominations would now agree with what I have said, and they have been modifying their practices. The door is now open for Christians in general, across the theological spectrum, to choose the kind of radical holiness which is authentically biblical.

chapter four

The Test of Holiness: Obedience

How do you know if you're holy? I believe that the answer to this question has been overmystified and overcomplicated. The answer actually is quite simple: you are holy if you are obeying the standards of Jesus Christ!

This is far different from checking to see if you are following a set of rules developed by a legalistic religious group. It is based, rather, on your relationship to God. Here is the way the Bible describes this test: "Now by this we know that we know Him [our relationship], if we keep His commandments" (1 Jn. 2:3). It would make little sense to say, "I love God, but I don't love Him quite enough to do what He wants me to do." That is why John goes on and tells us, "He who says 'I know Him,' and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him" (1 Jn. 2:4).

"Obedience" Is Not a Popular Word

The social psychology of the United States took an interesting turn after World War II. The war was fought against dictators: Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito. It was such a traumatic experience for the nation that we collectively decided that we as a people wanted nothing to do with dictatorship. Partly as a result of this, an antiauthority strain began to permeate our national thinking.

For example, colleges began teaching "Maslow's Hierarchy." Maslow had suggested that human needs were like a pyramid with basic survival needs at the bottom, and other needs rising to the apex of the pyramid, which was "self-actualization." Practically a whole generation of Americans accepted self-actualization as a life goal. But notice what this implies: if I am self-actualized, I really don't need you! I am my own final authority. My ultimate obedience is to myself. I don't need to obey you or anyone else.

Should Wives Obey Husbands?

That is when "obedience" began to become an unpopular word. To illustrate, a funny thing happened in the 1960s. When men and women from previous generations got married, most of the wedding vows, whether the marriage involved Christians or not, routinely included the wife's promise to obey her husband. That was simply considered the proper thing to do in those generations. It was commonly accepted as an application of Ephesians 5:22-25 which says that wives should submit to husbands. The husbands did not reciprocally promise to "obey" their wives, but promised to "love" their wives in an attempt to apply Ephesians 5:25, "Husbands, love your wives."

However, in the current generations born after 1945, most brides have decided to take the word "obey" out of their wedding vows on the grounds of gender equality. It is now the exception, not the rule, for wives to promise to obey their husbands. Obedience has become unpopular, and hardly anyone at present is willing to promise to obey. The result? Look at what has happened to the divorce rate in our country beginning in the 1960s!

As I grew up and became an adult, I had my share of problems. But it never occurred to me to blame my problems on my parents. One of the most common things among the current generation is to blame their troubles on their parents. The pre-World War II generation obeyed their parents, while the post-World War II generation objected to their parents.

Dysfunctional Families and Dysfunctional Churches

All this is tied to our obedience to Christ, as it says in Ephesians 5:24, "Just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be subject to their husbands in everything." If we choose not to obey, starting with our marriages and also in other aspects of our life, we end up with dysfunctional families and dysfunctional churches.

Take Vineyard Christian Fellowship as an example. This was a church founded toward the end of the 1970s, and built on the post-World War II generation. By the time it was ten years old, it had grown phenomenally, but obedience had not become a high value among the members.

The issue revolved around overemphasizing relationship and underemphasizing obedience, a very sensitive issue among baby boomers. The good news was the deep desire among those in vineyard to develop intimacy with the Father. Vineyard worship music became popular in churches across America. They were referred to as "love songs to God." But the bad news was that God's blessing had begun to lift off the church. They suddenly ended up with above average numbers of moral failures among the membership and even among the staff. John Wimber, the founder, began to feel discouraged and burnt out.

The only way to sustain an authentic life of holiness is to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

That was when God brought Vineyard in contact with Mike Bickle and the "Kansas City Prophets." They issued a strong and urgent call to obedience. Vineyard consequently convened its first conference on holiness in February 1990. By then their people were so hungry for holiness that the conference sold out with 4,500 in attendance, and they were forced to schedule another one the following week to accommodate 4,500 more.

Vineyard's problem was not that they were teaching too much legalism. Instead, they found themselves allowing much too much licentiousness. The focus had become "what God does for me," not "what I do for God." They had been trying to maintain a relationship with God without honoring the standards which needed to flow from the relationship. It didn't work. Never has, never will!

The Power to Obey

If it is true that our relationship to Jesus is validated by our obedience, how can we do this? Where do we get the power to obey?

Paul wrote Romans 7 and 8 to explain that our obedience to Jesus cannot be accomplished through the flesh, but only through the power of the Holy Spirit. Trying to obey in the flesh will always lead to the kind of desperation that Paul felt: "O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Rom. 7:24). But the release comes in Romans 8:1: "There is therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit."

The only way to sustain an authentic life of holiness is to be filled with the Holy Spirit. I know that there are different views about the filling of the Holy Spirit, but my opinion is that we need to be refilled every day. I base it on the implications of "Be not drunk with wine...but be filled with the Holy Spirit" (Eph. 5:18). As any drunk can tell you, drunkenness lasts only one day. You may get drunk today, but if you want to be drunk tomorrow, you will have to get drunk again. Apparently, the filling of the Holy Spirit is similar. Because of that, I have made it a habit to ask the Lord to fill me with the Holy Spirit every morning, and I believe He does, because Jesus said that if a son asks his father for bread he will not give him a stone. The same applies in asking the heavenly Father for the Holy Spirit (see Luke 11:13).

This is very important for a life of holiness. Part of the package of being filled with the Holy Spirit is that He convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment (see Jn. 16:8). This means that the Holy Spirit will see that you keep on the road of holiness by convicting you if you begin going astray. Think how reassuring this can be. If you are filled with the Holy Spirit, the possibility emerges that you can actually live a holy life, free from sin, day after day.

chapter five

It Can Be Done !

Is it possible to be holy? If it were not, I can assure you that I wouldn't be writing this book. I am radical enough to believe that you and I can actually live lives without sin, day in and day out!

Two Questions and Answers

Let's begin exploring this by putting it in the shape of two questions and answers that will clarify many things for us:

♦    Can anyone be holy? Yes. As a matter of fact, in one way of looking at it, every Christian is holy.

♦    Can anyone be holy enough? No. No Christian is ever holy enough.

As I have pointed out earlier, the root meaning of "holy," or "hagios" is to be set apart. Anything set apart to God is considered holy. That is why the Bible speaks of such things as a holy city or holy prophets or holy law or a holy kiss and so on. In the broadest sense, therefore, every true Christian is holy, set apart to God. Peter says we are "a royal priesthood, a holy nation" (1 Peter 2:9). We get there by being born again and becoming members of God's family. The Bible frequently refers to believers as "saints," and that word comes from hagios, literally "holy ones." When we become Christians we are set apart from the world, we are different from non-Christians, and we are set apart to God and His family. That is the sense in which we can say that every Christian is holy.

Christians Do Not Sin

Let's look at two Scriptures which, at first glance, may appear to be contradictory. The first is 1 John 3:6: "Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him."

What does this mean? It means that true believers no longer live a lifestyle that is characterized by sinning. Those who have been raised in Christian families and who have had a relatively smooth pathway into the church may not understand this very well. But those of us, myself included, who at one time were adult non-Christians, totally outside the church, know exactly what it means. When we are born again we become new creatures in Christ. The old things—the lifestyle characterized by sin—pass away. All things become new—a totally new lifestyle characterized by not sinning. What a difference! Since the day I accepted Christ as my savior and Lord, my life has never been the same; meaning, in part, that I no longer do or want to do many of the things that I used to do before I was saved. Why? Because the person I now love doesn't like those things!

This is characteristic of other Christians as well. I can't think of a single Christian person with whom I regularly hang out who goes around sinning, and I am associated with a large number of them. True, there may be some who are sinning secretly, but if they are they had better double check to see if they are really saved. At least that is what 1 John 3:6 implies: "Whoever abides in Him does not sin."

Christians Sin

I purposely made these two last subtitles sound like a contradiction: "Christians Do Not Sin," and "Christians Sin." Christians may live a lifestyle separated from sin, but that does not mean that they cannot or never do sin. They do! Here is what 1 John 1:8 says: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us."

This is why I have said that no Christian can be holy enough. Only when we get to heaven will we be totally free from the possibility of sin coming into our life. Meanwhile, sin does get in. So what do we do? Do we just say, "Well, that's the way the mop flops! I'm going to sin from time to time, so I may as well get used to it because no one's perfect!" No! If we truly know God, we will hate sin and we will deal with it aggressively. If we are on the road to radical holiness, we will reject any "que sera, sera" mentality.

Here is what we do: (1) we deal with the sin and confess it immediately, and (2) we take steps to see that sin invades our life as infrequently as possible, and that the rule of our life is to live without sinning. Sin, then, becomes the clear exception to the rule for our lifestyle. The rule is living a holy life. Let me explain.

I Haven't Sinned!

I am writing this in the evening, and so far today I have not sinned.

To be honest, I didn't expect to sin today, nor do I expect to sin before I go to bed tonight. In fact, I did not sin yesterday. Not that I couldn't have sinned yesterday or that there is no possibility that I may sin before I go to bed tonight, but so far so good.

Every morning, without fail, I take preventative measures. The way I do it is by praying the Lord's prayer. By this I don't mean that I say the Lord's prayer, but that I pray the Lord's prayer. I learned to do this years ago. I realized that on two separate occasions when the disciples asked Jesus to explain to them how they should pray, He gave them what we now call "the Lord's prayer." One of these occasions is in Matthew and one in Luke, but they are not parallel passages. They were actually 1 1/2 years apart, implying that this is the form of prayer that Jesus most highly recommends. I have not found any more useful framework for daily praying than the Lord's prayer. The "Prayer of Jabez" is okay, but I don't think it can match the prayer of Jesus!

Forgive My Sins

Every morning, therefore, I say to God, "Please forgive my sins as I forgive those who sin against me." I think "sin" is the best word here, rather than the archaic words "debts" or "trespasses." When I do this, I have trained myself to take a mental review of the past 24 hours to see if I have done anything that I need to confess. This morning when I did that, I came up blank, and that is why I arrived at the conclusion that I didn't sin yesterday.

How do I know that I didn't make a mistake and that I really did sin some unnoticed sin yesterday? It is because I am filled with the Holy Spirit. As I explained in the last chapter, one of the roles of the Holy Spirit in our lives is to convict us of sin. If I had sinned, the Holy Spirit would have brought it to my mind. This is why I make sure that every morning I also ask God to fill me with the Holy Spirit.

Holiness is not some evasive and unrealistic goal. If it were, God wouldn't command us to be holy, and expect us to obey His command.

When it comes right down to it, if we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we don't ordinarily have to wait until the next morning to discover that we sinned yesterday. In my case, when I do sin (notice that I didn't say "if I sin!"), I know it right on the spot. The Holy Spirit leaves no question in my mind. And I usually confess it instantly. I say "usually" because not too long ago, the Holy Spirit convicted me of a sin, but I stayed in denial for about two hours. That evasive attempt didn't work, the Holy Spirit kept my feet to the fire, and I finally confessed it.

I must admit that I usually confess sins like this again the next morning just to make sure. I realize that this is really not necessary because when we confess our sins, God forgives us and our sin is put away from us as far as the east is from the west. I don't necessarily recommend it for you, but I do it anyhow.

Lead Me Not Into Temptation

The next thing I ask the Lord is, "Lead me not into temptation." And I guess it would go without saying that I expect God to answer my prayer because I know that I am praying according to His will. If He does, and if I consequently go through the whole day without being tempted, I have no reason to expect to sin.

I realize that some will read this and wonder where I am coming from. Many Christians feel that it is impossible for anyone to go a whole day without sinning. Some have attempted to make a distinction between sins of commission and sins of omission. If they can't think of any sin they have committed, they conclude that there must be things that they should have done or that they should have done better, so they confess those things as if they had sinned. What are they doing? Without realizing it, they are confusing perfection with holiness. We can be holy, but we cannot be perfect. The song, "Holy, Holy, Holy" is correct when it says that only God is "perfect in power, in love, and purity." God is perfect, but He doesn't expect us to be perfect.

I know a family that routinely confesses their sins at every meal and also before they go to bed. To be honest, I think that too much confession, not only privately but even in our church services, can tend to trivialize sin. Why assume on Sunday morning, for example, that everyone who has come to church has sinned during the past week? If we can be holy for a day, can't we be holy for a week? I would expect that in a healthy church, the assumption would be that we haven't sinned, or that at least if we have, we have confessed it at the time we sinned, rather than waiting for the next church service.

When I affirm that we can be holy, but that we can't be perfect, let's not allow that to become a cop-out. I recently heard a Christian leader say, "Nobody is perfect! Everyone has sin issues that they are dealing with." I would agree that no one is perfect. But I don't think that this gives us an excuse to put up with a "sin issue" in our lives, and expect it to continue. Living with a "sin issue" is wrong. If there is a "sin issue" today, we should deal with it decisively and not allow it to continue tomorrow. We then can say, "I had a sin issue," but not, "I have a sin issue."

Deliver Me From the Evil One

As a final reinforcement, Jesus instructs us to pray, "Deliver me [or us] from the Evil One." The older language, "deliver us from evil," often causes us to miss the point that we are really praying protection from the devil. When I pray this every morning, I again expect God to answer. If He does deliver me from Satan, I will not be tempted, simply because God does not tempt people (see James 1:13). It is the devil who tries to get me to yield to my own desires and consequently to sin.

Holiness is not some evasive and unrealistic goal. If it were, God wouldn't command us to be holy, and expect us to obey His command. Can it be done? Yes, it can be done! We can be holy!

chapter six

Measuring Your Holiness

If we can be holy, and if holiness of life becomes our goal, how can we measure our progress? Can I be holier and holier as time goes on? Can I be more holy this year than I was last year? I think the answer is "yes." Admittedly it might be a bit difficult to measure it on an annual basis, but I think I can accurately say that I am more holy now than I was ten years ago. How do I know? Because I see more fruit of the Spirit in my life now, and others confirm it to me.

The Danger of Visible Indicators

As we progress in our holiness there has often been a temptation to set up visible indicators to help measure our progress. This is what was wrong with the "foolish Galatians" who Paul scolded for going back to the law (see Gal. 3:1). We should avoid the trap of letting legalism define our degree of holiness. Even thinking that some form of a "second blessing" that we might have experienced sometime in the past has made us "holy enough" is a danger.

The picture begins to come together when we balance direction with accomplishment. The direction, or our inward holiness, must be first and foremost. Who, besides God, knows if I really have a clean heart? People close to me know—my spouse, my children, my close colleagues, my prayer partners. If my direction is right, then my outward accomplishments will follow. I will go to church, I will pray, I will tithe my income, I will maintain biblical morality, and I will abstain from ungodly activities, just to mention a few of the more obvious behavior traits. But none of these accomplishments can prove that I am holy, as the Pharisees found out when Jesus accosted them. The Pharisees strictly kept the law (accomplishments), but they were far from God (direction).

The Value of Outward Accomplishments

If our inward direction takes precedence over our outward accomplishments, which it does, then what good are outward standards of behavior? This is an important question that many will ask. There are at least three answers to that question:

1.    Outward standards help reveal the absence of holiness. Even though your outward actions cannot prove that you are holy, some of them certainly can prove that you aren't holy! You know what they are, God knows what they are, and your friends know what they are. Enough said!

2.    Standards can reflect degrees of Christian maturity. God is our Father, He is patient, and He understands spiritual children. We begin our Christian journey as babes in Christ, but God expects us to grow up. We do the same with our own children. One way to scold our five-year-old child is to say, "You're acting like you were two!" Or, "Act your age!"

For example, Paul was really upset with the Corinthian believers because they weren't acting their age. He says to them: "I, brethren, could not speak to you as spiritual people, but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ" (1 Cor. 3:1). There was no question that they were true believers and that they had a relationship to God, but their outward behavior was childlike.

Our behavior invariably reflects our true character.

This happened recently in real life with the Vineyard Christian Fellowship which John Wimber was pastoring. By 1989 they were more than ten years old, but they were acting like they were three. That is when Wimber began to build relationships with Paul Cain, Mike Bickle and the Kansas City Prophets, as I mentioned in Chapter 4. Christianity Today reported that "Wimber credits [Paul] Cain's ministry with saving the Vineyard."1

What was going on? Keep in mind that Paul Cain is one of America's most respected prophets. "Cain told [Wimber] that God stood ready to forgive the sins of the Vineyard, that Wimber was to take a more authoritative and directive role, and that he was no longer to tolerate 'loose living and low standards,' but was to emphasize holiness."2 He might as well have said, "Vineyard, act your age!" Happily, Wimber and his church obeyed the word of the Lord, and they have been better off ever since.

3.    Standards are requirements for Christian leadership. The moment believers accept the role of leadership in the body of Christ, they move to a higher level of responsibility and accountability before God. James 3:1 says: "My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment." God evidently has a double standard of judgment, one for leaders and one for the rest.

The Bible never gives us a list of behavioral requirements for maintaining church membership. For example, Paul wrote 1 Corinthians to a church involved in division, law suits with each other, marital problems, drunkenness at the Lord's Supper, disorderly services, eating idol meat, rebellious women, abuse of tongues, and heresy on the doctrine of the resurrection. But he recommended excommunication for only one church member—the one who was living in open immorality with his stepmother. The rest could remain in the church.

But the situation changes radically for leaders. The Bible has detailed lists of behavioral requirements for bishops, deacons, deacons' wives, and elders (or pastors). If an individual does not live up to those standards, he or she can remain as a member of the church, but not enter into leadership.

This means that if you are a pastor, or on a church staff, or a cell group leader, or a deacon, or an elder, or a trustee, or a Sunday School teacher, or a ministry leader, or a worship leader, or a seminary professor, or an administrator, or an evangelist, or an apostle, just to name a few, living a holy life is not an option. It is a requirement.

Leaders Derive Influence from Holiness

My biblical role model is the Apostle Paul. I want to be like Paul when I grow up! One reason that Paul was such an influential leader was that he practiced living a holy life. When he wrote his rebuke to the Corinthians, he was able to say to them: “I know nothing against myself’ (1 Cor. 4:4). This means that Paul had examined his heart, had searched his inner being before God, and had found nothing unholy there. Because he was pure, he could then go on to say, "Therefore I urge you, imitate me" (1 Cor. 4:16).

I try to do the same thing. When I am teaching my classes in Fuller Seminary and in Wagner Leadership Institute, I am the leader. I, therefore, need to stand in front of my students and say, "Do you want to know how to live the Christian life? Live it like I live it! Do you want to know how to relate to your spouse? Relate like I do! Do you want to know how to raise your kids or pay your income tax or give your tithes and offerings or use your time or what to eat or drink or what to watch on television? Look at the way I do it, and do the same!" Now, such a thing could sound like pure arrogance. I understand that. But, when it comes right down to it, what other option might I have? What else could I say to my students? If I couldn't tell them to imitate me, I would thereby disqualify myself as their leader. Oh, I might be able to teach them enough to pass an exam, but I cannot be their leader.

Please don't misunderstand me. I am not saying that I am perfect. I am not Number One. I am not saying that others do not treat their spouses better or raise their kids better or have a better diet than I do. I don't see myself as the best or as "holier-than-thou." But what I am saying is that in my outward behavior, I do follow God's standards day in and day out. And I recommend the same for you!

Our leadership is validated by our character. And our behavior invariably reflects our true character.

Four Nonnegotiable Principles for Radical Holiness

If at this point you are saying, "I love God and I want to follow His standards," here is a checklist of four nonnegotiable principles for a life of radical holiness:

1.    Be sure you are in a proper relationship to God. First of all, be sure you are born again. I assume that almost every reader of a book like this would be born again, but if not, ask your pastor or a good Christian friend to help you. Secondly, be sure you are in daily contact with God. Your holy life is based on a relationship, and a relationship needs daily contact. No matter where I travel in the world, for example, I call my wife every day because that is my most important human relationship. God is my most important relationship of all, so I make sure I contact Him every day.

Note that I said a proper relationship, not a perfect relationship. God knows your heart and He knows if your true heart desire is to know Him and please Him.

2.    Confess all known sins. God will forgive any and all of your sins, but not if you don't specifically confess them. If you have any doubt as to what may be a sin, review Galatians 5:19-21 and Colossians 3:1-11 and the Ten Commandments and other biblical lists of sins. If any wrong thing on those lists is true of you, get rid of it immediately!

While you do this, do not indulge in spiritual selfflagellation. Don't repeat confessing old sins that have already been forgiven. Don't make up sins just to have something to confess. Trust the Holy Spirit to convict you of your real unconfessed sins in an unmistakable way.

At the same time, don't make the mistake of rationalizing guilt away. In other words, suppose you and your friend are having premarital sex. You say to each other, "Well, everybody's doing it and we really love each other, so it must be okay." It definitely is possible to sear your own conscience to such an extent that you build a barrier to the work of the Holy Spirit in convicting you of the sin.

If so, you cannot possibly be the person God wants you to be until you get out of denial and face reality. Confess the sin and agree with your partner that "true love waits." The same thing applies to whatever else you are doing that you know, down deep, is violating God's standard.

3. Seek healing for persistent sin patterns. It is an unfortunate fact of life that the devil actively rallies his troops to prevent God's people from being holy. He would much rather see the church filled with sin and carnality than to be characterized by holiness.

Satan does not get away with all that he desires because greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world. Nevertheless, it is possible that he may get through to us from time to time, using the world, the flesh and the devil.

Here is how it plays out in some cases. You know that your heart is right and your desire is to please God in everything. You confess a sin and you are forgiven. But a couple of days later it is back. This doesn't just happen once, but over and over again. You are frustrated because you are finding yourself doing things that you do not really want to do. In other words, you are out of control. Something else seems to be controlling you and it obviously is not God.

What I have just described are common symptoms of demonization. This is a spiritual illness that needs healing just as much as bodily illnesses such as bladder infections or stomach ulcers or diabetes. You will usually need outside help for this healing. I say "usually" because self-deliverance is possible in many cases. For some just understanding who you really are in Christ will do it, and the sin pattern will evaporate. But in many other cases it won't. This is like having a stomach ache and taking Alka-Seltzer or Pepto Bismol. It frequently does the trick. But when it doesn't, you decide to see a specialist. Increasingly, there are those who are specialized in getting rid of demons in our churches today, and they should be sought out by those with persistent sin problems.

4. Allow others to read your spiritual barometer. Relate closely to one or more other people whose spirituality you respect and who know you and love you well enough to be open and frank with you, and you with them. Some home cell groups fill this need. Sometimes it is a personal friend. Doris and I have a very close circle of twenty-two I-1 and I-2 intercessors (using the terminology of my book, Prayer Shield [Regal Books]) who hear from God about us and to whom we have given God permission to tell everything about our lives. As a result, we realize that it is impossible for us to have secrets. They use the information well because they love us and pray for us. Without their ministry, we would have a very difficult time living the holy lives that we desire.

You may not have a group identical to this, but do whatever is necessary to have similar input into your spiritual life.

Conclusion

You and I can do it! We can be the people that God really wants us to be. God is holy and we can be holy. It is our choice. We can live a radical life for God by choosing to be radically holy. My prayer is that you will say, "Yes, God," and do whatever it takes to make it happen!

Notes

1    Michael G. Maudlin, "Seers in the Heartland," Christianity Today, January 14, 1991, p. 21.

2    Ibid.

RADICAL HOLINESS

CAN ANYONE REALLY LIVE A HOLY LIFE?

CAN I BE HOLY ENOUGH?

WHAT ARE THE NON-NEGOTIABLE PRINCIPLES FOR RADICAL HOLINESS? IS THERE A TEST OF HOLINESS?

WHAT LEVEL OF HOLINESS SHOULD BE REQUIRED OF A LEADER?

God has a radically higher plan for your life! Only through walking in true holiness will we ever be able to step higher and embrace God’s radical lifestyle. In this insightful book, C. Peter Wagner will give you the keys to stepping into a new level of holiness, and help you put an end to the enemy’s attempts to hold you back from being all that you can be.

C. Peter Wagner serves as Chancellor of Wagner Leadership Institute and President of Global Harvest Ministries. He is a widely recognized authority in the fields of church growth and spiritual warfare, and is the author of more than 50 books including Seven Power Principles That I Didn’t Learn In Seminary, Apostles and Prophets, Churchquake!, and the Prayer Warrior Series.

[1] George Barna, The Second Coming of the Church (Nashville TN: Word Publishing, 1998), pp. 120-121.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Why is Holiness a Hot Topic?

Chapter 2: Standards Have Not Gone Out of Style

Chapter 3: Biblical Holiness is Radical Holiness

Chapter 4: The Test of Holiness: Obedience

Chapter 5: It Can Be Done!

Chapter 6: Measuring Your Holiness

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