Page 9 - Inside Report - 1st Quarter 2016

we are intent on staying focused on Jesus, even our eyesight will The early church exploded in
be blessed. Jesus afirmed this when He said,“Blessed are the growth because members were living

pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8).
godly lives that drew others into the

A person who is genuinely justiied by faith through body of Christ. People loved each

Christ’s blood always seeks for the path God would have him other, were generous, and didn’t live
take. Isaiah wrote,“A highway shall be there, and a road, and it like pagans. There was purity in how

shall be called the Highway of Holiness. The unclean shall not they conducted themselves. Their holy

pass over it” (Isaiah 35:8). Jesus explained that road when He living was evangelistic; it grew the

told His disciples,“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one church. The worship of pagan gods was
comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).
degrading and impure, but Christianity

We come to God, as the old hymn says,“Just as I am.” But elevated people to a higher plane.

the Lord loves us too much to leave us just as we are. He lifts When I was younger, I explored and
us to a new life, to holiness. When Christ accepts you, washes investigated all sorts of religions that

away your sin, and gives you a clean heart, you want to cling were empty, vain, and hypocritical.

to that purity with every ounce of strength.When you believe
I also met many counterfeit Christians

who did not live holy lives. But when
I met Jesus, I thought to myself,“Wow!

Here’s the real thing!” Reading about the

pure and holy life of Christ converted

me to become a follower.
You will never be able to conduct

enough evangelistic meetings to

convert as many people as will be
converted by the example

of one holy life. Nothing

will advance the

gospel more
quickly than the pure life of a man or woman who stands

for God. The church needs to conduct meetings and employ

ministers—we will always need more money and clever
you have been given the gift of eternal life and understand machines. But nothing will ever win souls like better men and

what salvation cost heaven, you won’t want to squander that women, like a holy people.

experience. That’s how you know you are converted.
Beholding Holiness

Exhibiting Holiness
So, how do we live holy lives? We must turn our eyes on

When you live a holy life, your light will radiate to Jesus. When we commune with Christ, abiding in Him, His
everyone around you. Dwight Moody said,“A holy life will holiness lows into us. When you spend time with the Lord and

produce the deepest impression. Lighthouses blow no horns; invite Him to walk with you, it’s more dificult to sin knowing

they only shine.” The greatest witnesses in Scripture lived holy He is standing right next to you. If your eyes could be opened,
lives. Daniel stood irm in Babylon. His life was so consistent you would remember His words,“I will never leave you nor

that the king of Persia decreed that his people should worship forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).

Daniel’s God. A holy life has great inluence.
Paul explained the renewing power of looking to Christ:

The world is longing to see real Christianity. The reason “We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of
the gospel spread throughout the Roman Empire in just one the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory

century is because the church understood what it meant to be to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

holy. Christ had lived among them; they saw Him living out Our hearts are like the old-fashioned photographic plates

true holiness. Even when Jesus ascended to heaven, they still used before the invention of ilm. A light-sensitive glass, covered
wanted to live His kind of life.
(Continued on page 20.)

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Inside Report 1Q 2016