I'm going to start off this entry with a quote from J.I. Packer's book, Rediscovering Holiness. In one of the chapters, Packer presents a paradox of the Christian faith. Essentially, he says that a growing despair and awareness of one's sin and rebellion against God marks a growing attribute of holiness in the believer's life. Here is the quote...
"Intense distress at one's continuing imperfection, in the context of an intense love of goodness as God defines it and an intense zeal to practice it, is the clearest possible sign of the holiness of heart that is central to spiritual health. The paradox--to hard a nut, it seems, for some to crack--is that increase of real holiness always brings increase of real discontent."
"What?!?" I thought when I first read this chapter. "I thought that becoming more holy means an increasing awareness of one's victories over sin. A holy person is always happy and joyful because he or she is closer to God, and thus, not as captive to sin. The only person who is discontent is the one who is not following God on a daily basis and living in unrepentant sin." While there are truths in this, I think perhaps that there are also some grave misconceptions that can dangerously give us a wrong picture of ourselves, and a blasphemous view of the greatness of God. Bear with me for a moment.
Are there moments in your walk with the Lord that you suddenly feel an overwhelming disgust with your struggles, your thorns, your sinful heart, and your motives? When do these moments come? Do they come when you have neglected your time with the Lord for a week, or when you have discovered him in a new and exciting way? In my experience, when I meet with God in a new way, and He reveals a new part of Himself to me, I end up becoming more aware of my ugly sin, especially in contrast to His pure holiness. At first, I became very confused and angry. I wondered, why does it seem as if I am becoming increasingly more and more sinful if I am being consistent in my walk with the Lord? However, the Lord has now shown me that the closer I get to Him, the more and more He will reveal to me my sinful ways, causing me to run all the harder towards His saving grace that alone can rescue from the bondage of sin.
A disclaimer is in order here. I am not saying by any means that as one increases in holiness, one increases in GUILT. Guilt is a tactic of Satan used to place our righteousness on ourself and cause us to believe the grand lie that we must earn our own grace. Guilt tells us that failure to earn our righteousness makes us awful human beings. No, what I am saying is that an increase in holiness makes us sprint to the cross all the quicker, humbly throw ourselves before the throne of our loving and redemptive God, and through tears that flow on a daily basis, repent of our ways, begging that His righteousness continue to manifest itself in our lives. In the flesh, we are inadequate, dirty, rotten, and repulsive to a holy God. In Christ, (Gal. 2:20), we are new creatures, holy, redeemed, and pure. Never forget this truth and the absolute glory of the Gospel and the Incarnation. An increased awareness of the Incarnation and the beauty of the Gospel ought to daily show us what wretched, filthy, and ragged creatures we would be apart from Christ. So, in short, growing in holiness involves growing despair at one's flesh apart from Christ. We should all pray, with Paul...
"What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? THANKS BE TO GOD, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord." Romans 7:24-25.
Father, may we ever long for the day when we will be fully new creatures, enjoying sweet and untainted fellowship with you in your Kingdom. Sustain us until then, and affirm us of your salvation as we see our filthy rags become yet filthier.
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