Here is one of the most memorable descriptions of the church in the whole of church history from the anonymous second-century Epistle to Diognetus: For Christians are no different from other people in terms of their country, language, or customs. Habitual sin will cause us to miss what the Holy Spirit wants to say to us through the Word. Her prose is a bit old-fashioned, but this is the gist of it: Palmer knew that the Spirit was prompting her to surrender to God in utter allegiance and love for God and others. Various questions arise from this. 5:23), . Just a minute amount of the unction of the Holy Spirit can fill our hearts with more contentment than all the riches of the earth, because it shares in God's infinity. Here is a passage from a letter by St. Thérèse of Lisieux that can help us to understand what this means: I think St. Thérèse found this idea that we can obtain everything from God in the works of St. John of the Cross, who was virtually the only teacher she had. We all have the power to become holy, simply because God lets himself be won over by the trust we put in him. They share their meals but not their sexual partners. For God, each person is absolutely unique. In her day Phoebe was a world-famous evangelist as well as a teacher of utter devotion to God. To share this article with your friends, use any of the social share buttons on our site, or simply copy the link below. Devotion to God doesn’t mean isolation or withdrawal, as one finds among some sects. Reprinted with permission of Scepter Press. The Holy Spirit gives us … Only God can get to the bottom of our defects, and our limitations in the field of love; only he has sufficient mastery over our hearts for that. How does God the Holy Spirit guide us to Holiness By making the truth clear to us, reminding of of Jesus' teaching, helping us to understand Gods word, and helping us to avoid sin. St. John of the Cross expresses it elsewhere in other terms: "What touches God's heart, and triumphs over it, is firm hope. Another spiritual law, which is worth taking note of and that is confirmed by experience, is this: this path of docility to the motions of the Holy Spirit may be very demanding, because "the Spirit breathes where he will,"[14] but it is a path of freedom and happiness. It not only takes a lifetime; it also takes a church or a community of faith to display this new holiness. Edwards again: “Both the holiness and happiness of … He can become sad or angry, and others can insult Him and blaspheme against Him (Is 63:10; Mt 12:31; Ac 7:51; Eph 4:30; Heb 10:29). That strength can then be applied to other areas and may make us capable of one day practicing the commandments that up until then we had not been capable of fulfilling entirely. Love is not an alternative to holiness. Best of all, as followers of Christ, a part of God's holiness now resides in us as well, making it our mission to go out and spread the holiness … Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Notice that when Paul contrasted the works of the flesh with its opposite, he mentioned something positive and good: the fruit of the Spirit. 4:7–8), May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. . Being in tune with God’s will, turning from and confessing sin, and making a habit of prayer and the study of God’s Word will allow us to recognize—and follow—the Spirit’s leading. Instead, we need to say yes to good friendships; church participation; and acts of compassion, justice, love, goodness, and beauty. We become progressively holy, or we grow sporadically into holiness only because of the grace of God’s gift of the Holy Spirit in us. He says He will guide us. And this unction of the Spirit is unfailingly spread in the souls of those who do the good that the Holy Spirit inspires in them. But at the same time it is very encouraging. 1. Lord, by the light of the Holy Spirit you have taught the hearts of your faithful. Three women have come forward with additional allegations against the late Christian apologist. (Psalm 90:1-2) God’s Essence is Spirit (John 4:24) “God does not have a physical body. There are even infallible means for obtaining it, and the important thing is to know what they are. He shocked the smugly self-righteous Jews by calling those “blessed” whom they regarded as accursed (5:3-12). There are three dimensions to growing into holiness. There is a second reason, shown by experience. This enlarging of the heart is a clear sign of the presence of the Spirit. CTWeekly delivers the best content from ChristianityToday.com to your inbox each week. That does not mean, of course, that we don't have to make any effort; but if our efforts are not to remain fruitless, they must be directed to the right end. Subscribers receive full access to the archives. The Anabaptists emphasize local church, discipleship, justice, and peace. How can we discover what it is? In the Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church, it explains that “The Church is holy, not because all her members are supposedly holy, but rather because God is holy and is at work in her” (YouCat 132). In this verse, the Spirit of truth is a reference to the Holy Spirit because He is the one who guides us into all truth. “Now Scot,” she said with grandmotherly warmth and her customary twinkle in the eye, “gossiping is a mistake, not a sin, and God looks over mistakes.” Enough said. That meant—among many wonderful things—that they believed in entire sanctification. 13. Unfortunately (or fortunately!) To be holy is characterized by simultaneous devotion to God and separation from everything that is not godlike or Christlike. The soul is drawn steadily on to greater faithfulness to God, a clearer perception of his will, and greater ease in accomplishing it. These inspirations are necessary even to know God's general will for us. (1 Pet. 5 Threats to Your Holiness. He invests us with confidence over fear (2 Timothy 1:7). This in turn depends upon intimate fellowship between the Spirit and the believer. Father Jacques Philippe is a spiritual director, retreat master and the founder of the Community of the Beatitudes. Once we have taken that step of … chapter one from In the School of the Holy Spirit (New York, NY: Scepter Press 2007):13-25. The Holy Spirit also helps Christians in their weakness and intercedes for them. But for what he is asking, he has promised us his grace: God grants what he commands. Because the Spirit has been unleashed, and those who are open to the Spirit can do a transforming work that makes God’s people a shining display of loving holiness. Father Ravier, introducing the essential points of the spirituality of St. Francis de Sales, says: "Inspirations are one of the means the Holy Spirit uses to guide each person at every moment. We also need to understand what God is asking of us in particular, which he may not be asking of anyone else. It is impossible to attain holiness by our own power. But it is certainly not true that holiness is the result of a program of life we set ourselves. For example, we may be making a supreme effort to correct a character defect, while what God is asking us to do is accept it with humility and gentleness toward ourselves! Holiness is only revealed to us by degrees, as we journey on, and it is often something very different from what we imagine, so much so that the greatest obstacle on the path to holiness may be to cling too closely to the image we have of our own perfection. We proudly declare what is righteous and right and decry what is not. My grandma then returned to the “setting” room, and I waited a few minutes before I turned the conversation to entire sanctification. Holiness is the result of the Spirit’s work in us, and that same Spirit is engaged in our deepest hearts in a battle between what is good and what is evil. It was thought that in this life Christians could reach a level of personal holiness in which they could stop sinning. That means you are not sinless.”. When the touches of the Spirit, enlightening us and impelling us to act, are well received, they pour into our hearts not just light and strength but solace and peace, that often fills us with consolation. The ability to discern and follow them is one of the most important points of the devout life": Francis de Sales, Lettres d'amité spirituelle (Bruges: Desclée de Brouwer), p.  818. It is the love of God and the love of one’s neighbor which points out … Second, we need to discipline ourselves to practice acts of goodness, holiness, justice, love, compassion, and beauty. It is the emergence of an absolutely unique reality that God alone knows, and that he alone brings to fruition. The Holy Spirit does not work on us; He lives in us. This opening of ourselves demands a great deal of humility because it means renouncing our tendency, born of pride, to want to manage by ourselves; it means accepting our own poverty and so on. His website can be found here. As we have seen, there is sometimes a big difference between what God is actually asking of us, and what we imagine he is asking. To unlock this article for your friends, use any of the social share buttons on our site, or simply copy the link below. This uniqueness has an important consequence. How a film and television stuntman met the Lord in the air. This text illustrates some of the things we have just looked at. But it is only at the resurrection—or at some divine moment of creation after death and prior to entering heaven—that we become finally holy. The Church is holy because Jesus, who founded her, and the Holy Spirit, who dwells in and guides her, are holy. Among these ways, there is one that is so fundamental and important that it merits an explanation: the inspirations of divine grace. They inhabit both Greek and barbarian cities, according to the lot assigned to each. 1:7) 14. The aim of the following sections is to put us on the right track. "[2] The saints themselves witness to this. 2:13). If we decide to make an effort to achieve some spiritual progress according to our ideas and our own criteria, we are by no means sure to succeed. Third, behind it all, we need to remember that we do not make ourselves holy. (John 16:8-15.) When God inspires us to do something (if it really is God who is the source of that inspiration), at the same time he supplies the ability to do it, even if it is beyond our capacity or scares us at the start. He is the author of The Eight Doors of the Kingdom: Meditations on the Beatitudes, Called to Life, Real Mercy: Mary, Forgiveness and Trust, Searching for and Maintaining Peace: A Small Treatise on Peace of Heart, Interior Freedom, Fire & Light, Time for God, Thirsting for Prayer, and In the School of the Holy Spirit. Sign Up For Our Newsletter Here’s what happened to make me think I had popped her sacred bubble. What marked her holiness was a devotion to God that transformed her entire life, which is to say Phoebe Palmer was a model of Spirit-generated holiness. Are you open to the Spirit who brings a new holiness? "[13] God rewards us as generously as only he can. The partnership of the believer and the indwelling Holy Spirit in all that is undertaken for God is absolutely essential to achieve the will of God. . That is the secret of St. Thérèse of Lisieux's little way: God has a father's heart, and we can unfailingly obtain what we need from him, if we know how to take him by the heart. Source of holiness. 1:2), For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. There is a widespread but mistaken idea that holiness is the work of human beings: that what we need is to have a clear program of perfection, set to work with courage and patience, and achieve it little by little. 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