Good morning everyone,

Psalm 18:26-with the purified you show yourself pure;
and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous.

One of the things that frustrates me in wanting to defend Christians is the perception of the world’s idea of holiness. Thinking that Christians ought to be perfect and not display any marks of humanity. But the same thing that provokes me to be frustrated with the world, is the same things that tempt me to be frustrated with myself and us as the body of Christ. That we sometimes portray holiness as a means to feel proud of ourselves, and act as if we are not as wretched as the world without grace.

Seeing God rightly in His purity means we have seen our sin and know our need for a Savior. Therefore Christians ought to respond with a deep sense of knowing that being pure or holy comes first from knowing how sinful we are before a holy God. So we humble ourselves to Him, knowing we desperately need Him to continually purify our hearts and minds. But what happens if we don’t humble ourselves to this purity of His?

Eventually the way pride works in our lives (especially as Christians) is that we know we are to be "set apart" from the world. But if our hearts betray our actions and words, we are actually "crooked" before God and see God as tortuous, because we have desires that we want to establish that are not pure. So because we don’t want to humble ourselves to God who is holy and pure, in our pride we fake it, and once we get tired of faking it we walk away from God to do what we want. Therefore true holiness can only be established in deep humility before God, because we love Him over our own selfish image and desires, that have never really benefited us in the long run anyway.

P.S.-I really recommend you listen to this past Sunday’s message by Pastor Hong, I pray it will really bless your perspective!

In His Love, Ld