The Hole in Our Holiness: Filling the Gap between Gospel Passion and the Pursuit of Godliness

by Kevin DeYoung

The hole in our holiness is that we don’t really care much about it. Passionate exhortation to pursue gospel-driven holiness is barely heard in most of our churches.

We are teaching the nations to follow his commands. The Great Commission is about holiness. God wants the world to know Jesus, believe in Jesus, and obey Jesus. We don’t take the Great Commission seriously if we don’t help each other grow in obedience.

For starters, it was too common in the past to equate holiness with abstaining from a few taboo practices such as drinking, smoking, and dancing. Godliness meant you avoided the no-no list. Younger generations have little patience for these sorts of rules. In some cases they don’t agree with the rules (e.g., about movies, dancing, gambling). In other instances the rules just seem easy to manage. I know when I was growing up it seemed like holiness meant no alcohol, no drugs, and no sex. I wouldn’t have known how to get drugs if I tried. Beer smelled bad. And there sure as shootin’ wasn’t a long line of girls itching to get close to me. So I felt pretty good.

The truly super-spiritual do not “pursue holiness”; they celebrate their failures as opportunities to magnify the grace of God.

There are a hundred good things you may be called to pursue as a Christian. All I’m saying is that, according to the Bible, holiness, for every single Christian, should be right at the top of that list.

The sky is not falling, and it won’t until Jesus falls from it first.

God saved you so that you might be holy.