8:09 PM
I had a conversation with a young guy at church today. We were serving a spaghetti meal for a youth fundraiser and I had been asked to lead the food production. Which, if you have been reading this blog for a minute, you’ll recognize the wonder of that statement. (We’ll unpack that later.) The conversation led to a phrase I will remember forever.
For me, there are these concepts that I can’t quite explain. It’s like I can’t ever come up with enough words to describe the reasoning. It’s the culmination of a bunch of Bible verses pinging around in my mind, after chewing on them for a few months. The “riddles” God speaks of in Proverbs 1.
Sometimes God guides me in thought long enough for the concept to be formed perfectly into one statement. He gives it to me, in the form of…just thinking it and knowing it all came together, haha. Like, when you say something out loud that is way smarter than you and you can’t honestly take credit for it. Inside, you truly know that. Often though, we do take credit for it and feed our pride. It was our idea. We came up with it.
The very short conversation with the brother at church this morning, helped finally formulate a statement I’ve been ruminating on for a while.
As we spoke, I expressed how important it was to me to serve hot food. I believe in a little bit more work for a much, much, much better product. Serving hot food is crucial. You can make the fanciest meal ever, but if it’s supposed to be hot and it’s not, it’s not the fanciest meal ever.
And He was kind. He gave me leeway and offered up statements that would help me feel better, no matter what the outcome ended as. And honestly, he was right.
My immaturity in me, in the moment, kinna got a little upset, embarrassingly enough. I had to say something, though maybe I should have shut up? Because for a long time now, I’ve been really chewing on 1 Peter 1:16. It’s simple, but… impossible, really. I did well, in the moment, turning the conversation into teaching instead of judging.
“For it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.””
It’s quoted from Leviticus. I’ve tasted those verses long enough to understand that it’s not a suggestion. It’s not a low bar, either. It’s a seriously firm standard. It’s the standard we are expected to meet.
Nothing less.
And it’s repeated over and over in the Bible.
In 1 Thessalonians it says “God has called us not to impurity but to holiness.”
I looked up the definition of holiness and found that I like the 1828 definition in Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language. It includes, “integrity of moral character; sanctity; and freedom from sin.”
A commonly used, simple phrase people use says; “Nobody’s perfect.” Or if they really want to feel spiritual someone will say, “Only Jesus was perfect!”
This is the spiritual heart condition of the words I heard today:
‘There are reasons that you can lower the standard, and it’ll be okay.”
……. … .. .
Do you understand my frustration? Again, thinking about that way of living, not in offense but disgust, I grew prideful, and began stumbling over my words. But in that moment, the summation of all the coagulated thoughts, finally rolled smoothly from my mouth.
“The moment we say, “Nobody’s perfect,” we lower the standard.”
The moment we say, “Nobody’s perfect,” we lower the standard.… Instantly, we are not aiming for perfection, just, close to it.
We walk around trying to make people feel better by telling them to lower their standards. That holy is just too hard. Just get close.
I feel the enemy in those words.
“Try hard. But it’s impossible, so don’t try that hard.”
Or in other words, “You will not surely die!” Remember the cunning snake, Genesis 2?
That sort of mindset is an immediate handicap that will absolutely affect the outcome.
You can’t say, “well, we are in a blizzard in 20 degree weather, the food will never be hot.” Cause look, in a blizzard, with 20 degree weather, the hungry people want their spaghetti hot. And there are ways to make it happen.
I appreciate his kindness. And honestly, we should use grace for others. The standard for ourselves should be holiness, and it applies to only ourselves, as far as we should be concerned. Though, we do express grace to both parties when we fail.
But there is no contingency plan when it comes to faith! There is no situational exception. If there was, it would not be faith!
The same with holiness. It’s either holiness, or it’s evil in our lives. If we’re not legitimately trying to rid ourselves of all evil, aren’t we…evil? At least a little bit?
And if you mix in just a little bit of feces with the meal… it’s enough to ruin it for everybody. The same goes with faith. If you mix in a little doubt with your faith, it’s not faith. As Jesus says, “A little leven works through the whole dough.”
Goodnight Beloved. God bless you.
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