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When we think about holiness, our thoughts might tend toward moral behavior and right conduct, but Gary Wilkerson shows us from scripture that holiness is so much more. We don’t become holy by garnering our own will power and trying to follow a list of dos and don’ts. True holiness comes when we know God, realize he already calls us holy through faith in Jesus Christ, and receive his power to walk in holiness.
Key Points from the Podcast
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Holiness, or qodesh in Hebrew, means apartness, set apartness, separateness, sacredness.
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Holiness, or hagios in Greek, means a distinction or a claim to reverence.
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We need food, oxygen and God to sustain us, but God is unique in that he has no need of anything or anyone else for his existence.
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God chooses to make something holy and then asks us to keep it holy by aligning with his will to make something distinct, to set it apart, make it unique, and worthy or reverence.
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We tend to wrongly equate holiness with moral conduct or right behavior, so then we think if we behave a certain way then we are acting holy.
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When God reveals his holiness, it is usually a precursor to something dynamic he is about to do.
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In creation we see the Creator’s desire to distinguish one thing from another: water from land, land from sky, light from dark, seasons, clean and unclean, male and female.
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Our culture today wants to blur the lines between, or bring together, things which God has called to be distinct.
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A holy lifestyle is not making a list of behaviors to attain to through your own will power but knowing God and receiving his power to walk in holiness.
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As God’s chosen people, we are not trying to become holy, we already are.
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The process of sanctification is realizing who you already are in Christ.
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Worshiping God is part of coming to know the otherness and holiness of God.
Bible Verses Referenced in the Podcast
Exodus 3:4-7; Isaiah 6:1-8; Revelation 2:14-15, 20; 1 Thessalonians 4:4-5; Ephesians 5:3; 1 Peter 2:9; Galatians 3:3
About Gary Wilkerson
Gary Wilkerson is the President of World Challenge, an international mission organization that was founded by his father, David Wilkerson. He is also the Founding Pastor of The Springs Church, which he launched in 2009 with a handful of people. He has traveled nationally and internationally at conferences and conducted mission ventures such as church planting, starting orphanages, clinics, feeding programs among the poorest of the poor and the most unreached people of the earth. Gary and his wife Kelly have four children and live in Colorado Springs, CO.