Free to Live: The Utter Relief of Holiness (9 page)

The new model of holiness that Jesus gives us is one that flows from the inside out—from the heart. Rather than focusing on technical rule-keeping—
did I give ten percent this month, stop at yellow lights, return that pencil to work?
—we are urged to shepherd our hearts through the day.

A guy at work gets canned; something in you rejoices. You realize that in fact you hate him.
Oh, Jesus, forgive me; I renounce this hatred. Give me your holiness here, right here, toward this guy
. It’s late at night, it was a horrible day, and the donuts are calling to you. Aware now of the deeper issues of the heart, you can say,
Oh, Jesus—rescue me. Forgive me for my false comforters;
forgive me for turning here so many times. I reject this idol; give me your holiness here
. This is an absolutely wonderful thing. The direction of your heart is not inevitable. You have a say in it.

Will we do it perfectly? Of course not. Friends, let’s set perfection aside. We are on our way, we are being transformed, but the moment we insist on total perfection we set ourselves up for bitter disappointment. Sin shall not be our master, because we are under grace. Grace. So it might be more helpful for us to talk about what to do when we blow it.

Repent quickly. The sooner the better. For one thing, you do not want to lose your intimacy with God. For another, you know the enemy is going to jump all over you when you blow it, and you don’t want to get hammered by that for days, weeks, months, years. Also, you are after freedom; the longer you wait to repent, the deeper a hold the sin gets in you. Repent quickly; it looks something like this:

First, run to God.

Second,
renounce
it. If you intend to repeat the sin, your repentance is a fraud. By renouncing the sin, you summon your soul to the posture that you do not intend to repeat it. Furthermore, when you sin, you give way to forces that you do not want running pell-mell around your soul. Sin is what gives the evil one a place in our lives:

You do
not
want him taking advantage of your fall. Renounce it quickly.

If you don’t really renounce it, you’re not really breaking with it; which means you’re allowing for the possibility that you’ll repeat it. And what kind of repentance is that? If you ignore the enemy’s role in this—many Christians just want to ask forgiveness but not resist the devil—you are being naive; you are giving him the opportunity to hang around and use this against you, either through further accusation or by urging you to sin again. Did Satan take advantage of Adam and Eve’s sin? You bet he did. Don’t let him take advantage of yours.

Third, practice cleansing and renewal. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9), and “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it” (1 Thessalonians 5:23–24).

It took me longer to explain it and longer for you to read it than it actually takes in practice. Really, you can jump straight to this in your car, in the elevator, as soon as you step out of a meeting. (But why wait? Do it silently in your heart in the meeting.) If you
practice
this—instead of, say, just resorting to self-loathing for several hours or giving way to resignation—you are going to love the freedom it brings. Absolutely love it. Friends, holiness is ours, if we ask for it, seek it, pursue it. “[F]or though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again” (Proverbs 24:16).

Now, I realize that there are some situations where habitual sins or massive failures create something far more stubborn to deal with. We will turn there next.

Chapter Ten

Holiness in Stubborn Places

People can get pretty messed up. Even good people. Our town has certainly seen its share of scandals, which are always tragic and almost always predictable. Sometimes the fall from grace plunges the person into a pretty dark place. When the shocking news is made public, the shared reaction is typically along the lines of
How could this have happened?
It happened for many reasons, of course, but they usually include—though it is rarely named—a wacked view of holiness.

I happened to know a bit about one recent shocker and I know that, first off, this leader did
not
believe that the heart is central. He believed that the heart of the Christian remains wicked even though Christ came to dwell within. Therefore, holiness for him was all about behavior. This is partly why I said these scandals are predictable: when you neglect the sanctifying of the heart, you set yourself up for a fall. No one can discipline himself into the holiness that we need in this world, and you sure can’t discipline yourself
out
of a deep dungeon. Neglect the heart and you are toast.

Second, in this man’s case there were major character issues quite apart from the sexual sin. In fact, the other issues came first and paved the way for the sexual fall. The man was a narcissist, always needing to be the center of attention. His narcissism created issues with money, pride, self-absorption, and manipulation. When you introduce duplicity into your character, it allows for greater double-mindedness to follow. We think we can compartmentalize our “issues,” but they bleed over into other realms. Dishonesty with your staff soon becomes dishonesty with your spouse; feelings of financial entitlement soon become feelings of sexual entitlement. But when you say to yourself,
I don’t have to look at those things
, it pretty quickly becomes
I don’t have to look at this, either
.

So, the heart was dismissed. He was trying to keep up an external model of holiness, but duplicity entered in. Add to that his childhood wounds. Often in these sexual falls there is some sort of early sexual experience—abuse or pornography or “experimentation”—and those experiences create a rift in the soul into which darkness loves to rush. But the minister in this case didn’t believe that the primary thing God is up to is making us “whole and holy.” He saw the pursuit of “wholeness” as an intrusion by secular psychology into the Christian life. He certainly didn’t want to admit to or face his own brokenness. His “fall” was utterly predictable; the man was a disaster waiting to happen.

Now, I know, it’s too easy to point to these public scandals. But the problem is the Church really mishandles them. After this particular fall, I heard pastors discussing it. One leader said, “Well, we’re all capable of that aren’t we?” All heads around the table nodded, and bang—that was the end of the discussion. There was no thinking about it, no probing, no questioning, no real consideration of how this
does
happen, so that we might understand how to prevent it or get out of it once it had happened. The classic line (repeated by many in this situation) is “We’re not going to judge. We’re all sinners saved by grace.” That’s simply not helpful. For one thing, you are far more than a sinner saved by grace. We’re
not
all capable of that. Saying we are is saying that no one grows in holiness, no one gets any better, Christ hasn’t transformed
any
person’s life to
any
degree. Nonsense.

I don’t want to pretend that the process of our transformation is easy. You already know it isn’t. But I do believe we can find the genuine goodness of Jesus in our deep and lasting struggles. I believe it can happen; I’ve seen it happen; the scriptures promise it can happen. It will help to keep in mind that, first, it is a
process
. A process God is committed to. It is a process in which we can cooperate, a process that
needs
our cooperation. There is a way to be good again.

I think it will prove helpful if we use three scenarios of deep struggle to help illustrate how we all can deal with our own struggles.

Danny married in his twenties. Around age thirty he began to surf the Internet for homosexual pornography, though he didn’t know why. The inner conflict was tearing him apart, but he explored deeper until he found himself seeking out homosexual encounters at gay bars. He repented. He vowed to himself and to God that he would stop. Given the ocean of guilt and self-hatred he felt, he was certain he would never do it again. One week later, he was back at the bars looking for sex. A year later he has given up on holiness; he’s just hoping he doesn’t get caught. Resignation has set in, along with depression. How could this have happened? Never in his life did he think he would seek out such liaisons. After all, he is a Christian—how can this be happening? Where is the promise of a holy life?

Dawn’s issue is rage. She kept a lid on it for many years, but recently it has come out, directed at her young children. Things have gotten violent on a few occasions, but so far no one outside the family knows about it. She realizes she’s crossed a line in her discipline of her kids, and it scares her. But she feels trapped; if she confesses to a friend or her priest, she fears she might lose her children to social services. So the rage goes unaddressed, a monster waiting to overcome her.

Curt is drinking too much. He had issues with drugs and alcohol in high school, but left that behind when he became a Christian in his twenties—or so he thought. Now, at age forty-seven, he’s turning to alcohol again to deal with the emptiness he feels inside. He never wanted to be single, never wanted to stay in his hometown. None of his dreams panned out, and he hates his job, hates his life. So he comes home, turns on the TV, and drinks himself to sleep.

How can these folks find holiness? How can we? Again, it is a process. But the way we look at our situations, and the way we understand the interplay of three forces, can make or break our hopes for real transformation.

Notice that in each of the three passages, bondage is addressed. In the Romans passage, Paul makes clear that our bondage is linked to our choices, to what we “offer ourselves” to. In Ephesians, the bondage is a direct result of letting the sun go down on unaddressed issues, giving our enemy a foothold in our lives; the bondage here is a
spiritual
stronghold. In Isaiah, bondage is linked to brokenheartedness—God is promising to bind up (heal) our brokenness and free us from captivity. The two go hand in hand. And so we see the issues here are sin, brokenness, and spiritual strongholds. If you want to be free, if you want to experience the utter relief of holiness, you need to understand the interplay of sin, brokenness, and strongholds.

Those who don’t find lasting freedom are usually trying to deal with only one category.

Danny’s story is going to reveal some childhood trauma. But Danny is thirty-five now; he is an adult, and his current sins are screaming at him. I believe we need to start here. The therapeutic model wants to head straight for the trauma. We
do
need to find healing for the wounds, but we also need to deal with the sin. In most cases, this comes first. (I am describing a model that people can use wherever they are, particularly in the absence of professional help. But if you can get to a Christian counselor, by all means do so!) You have to start with what you know; you have to begin there:
Forgive me for this sin—this sexual sin, this rage, and my abusive speech to my children; forgive me my drunkenness
. You start with repentance; you start with what you know.

Again, the hope is this: God wants to sanctify us through and through:

Freedom comes only as we bring these unsanctified and unholy places under the rule of Jesus Christ, so that he can possess these very places deeply and truly. Therefore, part of this first step involves sanctifying the place of bondage to Christ. If it’s sexual, you sanctify your sexuality to Christ; if its emotional (as with rage) you sanctify your emotions; if it involves addiction you sanctify your appetite, your obsession, and your body. At the retreats we do, we walk through this process in prayer, and many people are shocked to realize that they have never taken the first, simple step of sanctifying their sexuality (or emotions, or appetites) to Jesus Christ. But if you want to be free in this place, it must come under the total, intimate, ongoing rule of God.

There is hope of freedom because of what Christ has done. Now we have an option. But we do have to stop presenting ourselves over to sin as best we can. Our choices matter. We need to renounce the ways we have presented ourselves to sin, and re-present ourselves to Christ. It is only a beginning, but this is very important.

I am describing in this chapter a process of prayer, but let me note two things: First, your heart has to be “in it.” Casual repentance equals casual results. Stay with the prayer until you feel as if all of you were cooperating. But I have found that “in the moment of temptation” sanctifying is very important, too. When you feel the urge is the very moment to sanctify, because that “part” of you is quite awake and present, and in those “live” moments, sanctifying really helps.

Now, like the iceberg, there’s a whole lot more under the surface. So you invite the Holy Spirit to reveal the roots of your struggle, because we have all let the sun go down on these things, many times over months and over years, and this is what entrenches the bondage in our life. Immediate repentance is important, but you’ve got to go very deeply into this to get it cleaned out and healed so that you can be genuinely whole and holy, genuinely free in this area. As David prayed,

As the Spirit reveals each layer of this, he’ll show you times in your life when there were events that helped create the lasting bondage. Your first sexual encounter, for example, or times when you lost your temper and gave way to rage; those first high school parties when you got drunk. So in Dawn’s case, she’d ask the Spirit to show her where this rage got in, and as he did, she’d pray over each event.