Bible Series

Holiness

“No man should desire to be happy who is not at the same time holy. He should spend his efforts in seeking to know and do the will of God, leaving to Christ the matter of how happy he should be.” (A W Tozer)

“I believe the holier a man becomes, the more he mourns over the unholiness which remains in him.” (Charles H. Spurgeon)

At The Bridge Church, 2025 is our Year of Holiness.

A humble observation is that we are good at focussing on salvation, but less good at sanctification. We are too satisfied with our sanctification; too happy with our level of holiness; too at peace with worldliness; too at ease with habitual sin in our souls. To quote Kevin de Young: there’s a hole in our holiness!

We tend to equate holiness with saying no to things, abstaining from things; whereas holiness is about setting ourselves apart for God, so we’re not just set apart from the world, but we’re set apart for God. Or we turn the pursuit of holiness into rules and rituals, which leads to discouragement and despair, or feelings of superiority and smugness. Holiness should lead to delight, gratitude and encouragement.

We’re so keen to preach grace that we can at times shy away from words like effort, obedience, discipline, purity, right, wrong. True grace should lead to that zeal for holiness – that longing for purity, pursuing the Lord, living upright, honest, obedient lives.

God’s word says this about holiness:

I am the Lord, who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy. Leviticus 11:45

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory. Isaiah 6:3

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.” 1 Peter 1:15-16

Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. Hebrews 12:14

This year we’ll spend time dwelling on God’s holiness and dwelling in God’s holiness, because the latter flows from the former. God says: ‘be holy’, because that’s God’s character. God is not just loving, kind and gracious, he is holy. So, we need to dwell on His holiness, feeding our hearts and minds with His purity, His perfection, His splendour. We need to get that right so our pursuit of holiness flows from our awe of God. Only when we have a bigger view of God will our lives be marked by reverence, respect, adoration, awe.

Our deepest desire is that through these Bible talks and all of our ministries, we would encounter and experience the Holiness of God in new and profound ways, leading to a deeper and richer intimacy with him.

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