What if true freedom defies our current, common categories?
I was recently a guest on a podcast with a good friend and amazing leader. We talked about the Asbury Outpouring for one thing, and then about holiness.
She asked me what I thought holiness meant, especially in the aftermath of the outpouring.
My answer surprised me. “Freedom.”
Holiness is True Freedom
Holiness means freedom. It’s not sheer moral purity, though that is often a result. It’s something much more than that.
What drew people to the holiest human being who ever lived—Jesus? It was the beauty of holiness (Ps. 96:9), his set-apart-for-God-ness.
He embodied a life, wholly free.
Free from what?
Free from the sickness of sin.
Let’s cut to the chase. Sin makes us sick. Missing the mark makes us sick. Reveling in dark thoughts and motives and judgements makes us sick.
Being set apart for Jesus—set apart from my old ways and old thoughts and old patterns and old feelings—is the only cure for the heart.
And if the heart is cured, humanity will be cured.
Make no mistake, Jesus was piercing the heart of the world with a human revolution. No government by the people, for the people, can compare.
And the Holy Spirit leads us to this freedom. Holiness is allowing the Holy Spirit to make us like Jesus in every respect. It is a gift the Lord gives, and we lean into it.
We don’t repent because we have to—we repent because we get to.
We don’t consecrate ourselves to Jesus because its our obligation—we consecrate ourselves to Jesus because it is his invitation.
I, for one, am tired of being un-free.
I for one, am tired of being sick with sin—mistrust, self-dependence, fear, hatred, lovelessness, aggravation and irritation and frustration of the kinds that flow from a heart divided, a soul spent injuriously in the wrong places.
Sin doesn’t age well; it looks worse on us, and feels worse in us, as the years progress.
Jesus, I want true freedom. I want holiness. I want anything out of the way that separates me from the incredible love you have for me. And I want healing. All of it. From my mental anguish and incessant return to old patterns of thinking and feeling and acting.
