Non-Conformity

As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”
- The Apostle Peter, 1 Peter 1:14-16

Have you ever felt like a task set before you was impossible? Maybe it was an assignment at work, instructions from your spouse, or just the mere idea of raising children in this crazy world in which we live. Impossible tasks!

Well, let’s add one more to the mix: Holiness.

Peter quotes the words of God from Leviticus 11:44, when he writes,

“Be holy, because I am holy.”
- Leviticus 11:44

Holiness, by definition, is to be morally perfect, which is obviously impossible to accomplish. For that reason, some water it down by proclaiming that holiness is simply an ideal we are to aim for but won’t reach until we are in heaven. This sounds great, but unfortunately, it is not what God said. He did not say to “try” to be holy. He said to “BE” holy. So, what exactly does it mean for us? Does God mandate something of us that is impossible for us to accomplish? In a word, “Yes!”

From a biblical perspective, holiness is to be distinctive, set apart, resisting evil and developing Christlikeness through the work of the Holy Spirit in us.

Ah, did you catch that last part? Through the work of the Holy Spirit means to fully recognize that we cannot achieve holiness on our own. It is indeed impossible. But, because of what Jesus did for us on the cross, becoming the perfect sacrifice, once and for all, for the forgiveness of our sins, we are declared Holy, set apart to God, separated from sin and impurity. Then, as we surrender to the power of the Holy Spirit in us, we move toward moral purity.

Peter defines it this way:

Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For,

“All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.”
- The Apostle Peter, 1 Peter 1:22-25

As a result of what Jesus did for us, and when we surrender to the power of the Holy Spirit in us, we become non-conformists, no longer sucked in by the things of this world. As Peter writes, we become obedient children, no longer conforming to our evil desires.

Friends, we do not need to be victims of the trappings of this world, for we have in us, as the Apostle Paul writes in Philippians 3:10, “the power of [Jesus’] resurrection.” Or as Paul writes in Colossians 2:12,

...we have been raised with [Jesus] through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
- Colossians 2:12

May we no longer be conformed to the patterns of this world, for we have been set apart to God, distinctive from this world. We are being transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit in us, that we will be holy, as God is Holy.

As a result, may we “have a sincere love for each other, loving one another deeply, from the heart.”

Pastor Ken

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