Love God 2

1 Peter 1:14-15

In one of my teaching assignments part of my duties was to escort a classroom full of children down a long hallway, down a staircase, down a second hall, all the way to the cafeteria at lunch. It was the rule of the school that students should be quiet as they went to lunch so as not to disturb other classes.

I explained to my students that if they made noise no one would say this student or that student was noisy. They would say that Mr. Emerson’s class was noisy. I explained that in this they represented me, and since I am obedient to the rules they must also be obedient to the rules.

In the same way when we claim the title of “Christian” we are telling everyone that we represent the Son of God. As representatives of Christ we must behave in ways that give honor to the Lord. If we will grow in faith we must be faithful in our beliefs and add to our qualities of being Christian.

Peter has some instructions to faithful believers. What are we to do? What behavior should we live out? Why?

If we are to be obedient to God we must suppress our desires and tendencies to get caught up in the sinfulness of the world. We must avoid and suppress our sinful desires. We no longer live in ignorance. We have been shown the way of living out faith by Christ himself.

But more than simply being obedient to God, more than just having faith, more than just adding goodness to our faith, we must aspire to be holy in our behaviors. We are to add godliness to our faith, goodness and knowledge. We are to be holy in the same way that God is holy.

It is a difficult challenge. It is a high ideal to work toward, but we are children of God and we are challenged to be as holy as God.

And we are not called to be holy now and then. We are not called to be holy in private. We are called to be holy in all that we do.

If we are able to add holiness to our faith we will be one more step closer to being the great Christians we are called to be.

DAILY CHALLENGE: What must you do to be holy?