Dear Salvation Army, Is Holiness The Cure?

The cure to what?
Sickness?
Loss of Soldiers & Officers?
Depression?
Loneliness?
Defeat?

What do you mean?

Here’s A Calculated Guess:
Holiness is not preached and or emphasized enough in our Army today!
I think before we answer the “cure” question we have to consider why we are not making Holiness a priority anymore? Why does it play second fiddle to elaborate musical numbers in our corps and the other modern “elements” of worship? Is what we do on Sunday mornings still fit to be called “Holiness Meetings”?

I would venture a guess that perhaps the statistics of decline in the pews can, in some places, be lined up with the lack of holiness preaching and teaching. This sounds like an oversimplification of a wider spreading problem in most protestant churches, but the truth of the matter is Holiness has, in many places, taken a backseat to other things.

The Cure?:
So how does Holiness cure us you ask?
How could it possibly fix what is broken in our lives and in our corps?
Perhaps the answer is that as we shift our focus from the problem to being Set-apart once more. As we do this, we change our mindset, we are no longer living for just ourselves; our own pleasures; our own desires and selfish gains; No, we begin to understand and comprehend this deeper, more lasting calling in our lives! Holiness supplants our old way of looking at things and our entire lives and replaces it with the desire to be what God has called us to be through and through – the very image of Christ.

Some wonder if this is even possible in THIS life – and many Holiness theologians would say that it is indeed. We often get this notion that in order to be entirely sanctified – we have reach human perfection, and this misnomer holds many back from even pursuing Holiness. Many believe that holiness is an impossible task and that perfection is beyond them. And if Holiness = Human Perfection, then I would completely agree with those people. None of us would or should pursue holiness, because human perfection is unreachable, it is unobtainable. BUT, what if Holiness and even entire sanctification, for that matter, isn’t human perfection at all? Ah, then we have something tangible, something realistic to pursue and reach for.

Yes, this is the work of the Holy Spirit, but we are also required to make certain steps in dying to our old ways of life and embracing fully this new life. And when we fully embrace this new life and run after it with reckless abandon, we will then recognize that this world and its problems will become less and less, and that we have never been alone in our human struggles at all! You see, Holiness is the cure to much of our plight in our Army struggles and in our personal struggles! When we fully embrace what needs to happen, what must become our daily, even moment by moment pursuit, we open up our minds and hearts to the Eternal, and in doing so, we can begin to see things around us more clearly.

I am not saying that immediately our problems will evaporate, we may have to, like Paul, endure thorns in the side, we may have to endure hardships, but our focus will no longer be trained on hardships and our pains, but on the prize and on this pursuit.

Mark my words, if Holiness becomes extinct in our halls, corps and territories, we too will soon follow its path…

So how about it?
Do you want the cure?
Will you seriously pursue Holiness?
It’s not human perfection – it is God’s very presence living in us – longing for us to live for HIM through and through…one step at a time!