Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Pentecostal holiness

A personal Pentecost

Some Christians seem to think that holiness is unnatural and therefore unnecessary.

Holiness actually makes us what God originally intended in mankind.
Adam was a perfect person before he fell into sin.
The first Adam passed his sinful nature onto the entire human race. Jesus came to restore us to the original state of dignity and honour and moral goodness.
God’s love for the world, which is you and me, is so much that He planned to restore us through the Second Adam.

The Pentecostal baptism with the Holy Spirit is the only solution to reach the impossible ethical standard that God requires for us.
Such a life-changing experience of the work of God’s Holy Spirit entering into our hearts is an exciting, wonderful experience that FAITH alone can bring.

Because of His own holiness, the Holy Spirit cleanses the believer’s heart; of the filth of sin. He starts the perfecting process of developing his own character into the born-again believer, thereby empowering him for effective Christian witness.

Our salvation is free, yet it has an enormous price. It is a great disappointment that many have not paid the full price for such a genuinely Pentecostal experience. Too often we are inclined to settle for a loveless, passionless profession of holiness that has no effect on others who are supposed to be won over to want what is a notable change in the life of the person who claims to be sanctified.
What you are speaks louder than your words.

Acts 2:38-40
38 Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off-- for all whom the Lord our God will call."
 40 With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation."

The original Pentecost can never be repeated. The mighty rushing of the wind,
The tongues of fire; and the ability to communicate the Gospel, in an unlearned language.
But the gift of the indwelling Spirit of God is universally available to God’s people; to every generation, after generation until Jesus comes to fetch His people. There are only two types of people living in this world:  Holy and unholy people.
"Save yourselves from this corrupt generation."

Why do we preach holiness? Because. . .  
 . . .It is God’s purpose to have a holy relationship with the greatest object of His creation.
God loves the world, which is you and me, so much that He wants to restore us to have fellowship with Him through the Second Adam.

Matt 7: 21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
 22 Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?'
 23 Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'

Matt 5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart . . . .for they will see God.

. . . Jesus came and lived and died to cleanse the sinful world of their sins and to be made holy.

Matt 1:12 Call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.

. . . It is the essential prerequisite of salvation allowing entrance into God’s holy kingdom (heaven).
Heb 12:14  without holiness, no one will see the Lord.

The work of the Holy Spirit can be seen in the impact of the Spirit's moving in our times. Many of us who understand our Wesleyan doctrine, are coming to see clearly that the heart of holiness is to be filled, cleansed, and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and, further, that the baptism with the Spirit is a baptism of love.

acquainted with the teaching about righteousness
Who is the Holy Spirit? By His glorification "the last Adam became a life-giving spirit (I Corinthians 15:45).
45 So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; {45 Gen. 2:7} the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.
 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual.
 47 The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven.
 48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.

49 And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.

Christ will finally change our lowly existence to be like His glorious heavenly existence,
(Phil 3:20, NIV).
20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

We are programmed to be conformed to the image of the Son,

Rom 8:29. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

(2 Cor 3:18, NASB)
 And so we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit".

The Holy Spirit is the sanctifying Spirit of Christ.
It was the spiritual genius of John Wesley that he saw with penetrating clarity that this sanctifying ministry of the Spirit lies at the very heart of Christ's redemptive activity.
In his classic interpretation of John Wesley, George Croft Cell says:
"Wesley's theocentric doctrine of Christian experience is first, last, always a doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Holiness is the primary attribute of the Christian Church. Holiness is the essential quality of Christian experience. Holiness is the third term of the Trinitarian revelation of God. This is the highest conceivable position for the doctrine of holiness in the Christian faith and interpretation.

Conclusion
Don’t depend only on your initial Pentecost experience, you can enjoy many refreshing renewals of your spiritual growth when you ask for the Holy Spirit to cleanse you afresh at any time.
Holiness allows us to have intimate relationship with God
Holiness is made possible though the life and death of Jesus Christ, our Saviour
Holiness is essentially the prerequisite component of our salvation to enter the Holy Zion of God.

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