“It is the will of God that you should be holy”. (1 Thessalonians 4:3), and
“Put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness”. (Ephesians 4:24).
Holiness is a biblical term and means to be separated for God’s purpose. Of course, this meaning clashes ever so often with our personal will, desires, and interests, which seek self-gratification. While we may strive to honour and please God, the demands of our ‘self’ are, in fact, ever so strong. We do what our desires cry out for.
Religion prescribes to its followers an effort to compensate for sin by doing good.
And that makes us feel good too. “I am able! I can ‘pay the price’ for what we did wrong”. So I do not owe God anything. But God’s righteousness does not work like that, neither does it reflect His mercy and grace.! Good deeds’ are God’s norm! Note what Jesus taught us:
“So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.'” (Luk:17:10)
To attest our goodness, we are inclined to compare ourselves with other people, and that may do, to a certain extent, in our human society. But God applies His own divine standard to us. Too many people are wrongly instructed that if 51% or more of what they do complies with God’s laws, it will suffice to take them to paradise or heaven. God thinks differently:
“Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking the whole of it”. (James 2:10).
We do not break commandments. We break God’s Law! This verse reveals to us the desperate state in which we find ourselves. We must understand a fundamental truth:
We are not sinners, because sin. But we sin, because we are sinners!
Sin comes naturally. It is our nature to comply with it. We need no training to do it. Whether we like it or not, in each of us is, deeply rooted, the almost irresistible urge to sin. And remember: Sin is all that is contrary to God’s nature. Despite this most lamentable condition, deep in our hearts we want to be pure.
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