Holiness Matters

Micah J. Sturm

It was the craziest thing I had ever heard! This lady stood up in a convincing voice and said, “I praise the Lord that He’s given us a heaven to go to Heaven in!” Hearty amens came from nodding heads and tear stained faces aglow with smiling affirmations!

What I heard in that dear lady’s testimony, and in many others since, captivated my heart. How could people say that they enjoyed a measure of heaven here and now?

Life is often overwhelmingly difficult, distressing, depressing, and dark—even for those who have received Christ. But if it’s possible to have a touch of heaven now, then I’m interested!

The Bible says, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us…made us alive together with Christ…and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4-6).

I still believe in a real place of eternal union with Jesus Christ that far exceeds human imagination—a place called Heaven. The never ending day of praise around the throne of God, joining the voices of all those who have been redeemed, and living forever in the presence of Jesus Christ is the ultimate destiny for all who believe!

When our forgiven hearts and lives are surrendered to Him, we enjoy a full cleansing from sin (1 John 1:7), the joy of the Holy Spirit, and a daily preview from heavenly seats with Jesus! The transforming love and grace of God absolutely elevates our daily existence into His presence!

“Since Christ my soul from sin set free,

This world has been a Heav’n to me;

And ‘mid earth’s sorrows and its woe,

‘Tis Heav’n my Jesus here to know.

Chorus:

O hallelujah, yes, ’tis Heav’n,

‘Tis Heav’n to know my sins forgiv’n;

On land or sea, what matters where?

Where Jesus is, ’tis Heaven there.

Once Heaven seemed a far-off place,

Till Jesus showed His smiling face;

Now it’s begun within my soul,

‘Twill last while endless ages roll.

What matters where on earth we dwell?

On mountain top, or in the dell?

In cottage, or a mansion fair,

Where Jesus is, ’tis Heaven there.”

(C.F. Butler)

Knowing Christ is everything to us, no matter where we find ourselves on the journey, we have a heaven to go to heaven in—enjoy the touch of heaven right here and right now!

Micah J. Sturm

God still makes saints.

I have seen His transforming grace do it.

It’s the reality of Christian holiness.

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

2 Corinthians 5:21 NASB

The lives of those who have been transformed and who now reside in glory are gifts from the Lord to be treasured.

May the Church return to her reason for being—to proclaim the Christ who rescues from sin!

We desperately need more saints among us.

For all those saints who point me to Christ, I say, “Thanks be to God!”

Micah J. Sturm

HELL will never be full.

“Hell and destruction are never full…”

Proverbs 27:20 KJV

But nobody really expects to go there.

HEAVEN won’t be crowded.

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

Matthew 7:13-14 ESV

Everybody expecting to go there may not make it.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’”

Matthew 7:21-23 NRSV

The HOLY way is the only way—the way of complete abandonment to Christ.

He is the One who says, “Fear not” and makes it possible to have HOPE!

At the end there will be no excuses, no explanations, and no exceptions.

To endure one more moment without knowing Christ is a scary thought.

Micah J. Sturm

Encountering Jesus Christ changed my life—He made a difference!

I give thanks to Him that the people whom He used to nurture me actually live and believe the following statement:

“The church joyfully proclaims the good news that we may be delivered from all sin to a new life in Christ. By the grace of God we Christians are “to put off the old self ”—the old patterns of conduct as well as the old carnal mind—and are “to put on the new self ”—a new and holy way of life as well as the mind of Christ.

It is further recognized that there is validity in the concept of the collective Christian conscience as illuminated and guided by the Holy Spirit.

The historic ethical standards of the church…should be followed carefully and conscientiously as guides and helps to holy living. Those who violate the conscience of the church do so at their own peril and to the hurt of the witness of the church.

The Church of the Nazarene believes this new and holy way of life involves practices to be avoided and redemptive acts of love to be accomplished for the souls, minds, and bodies of our neighbors.

Our leaders and pastors are expected to give strong emphasis in our periodicals and from our pulpits to such fundamental biblical truths as will develop the faculty of discrimination between the evil and the good.

We suggest that the standard given to John Wesley by his mother, namely, “whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the relish of spiritual things, whatever increases the authority of your body over mind, that thing for you is sin,” form the basis for this teaching of discrimination.”

(Manual, Church of the Nazarene, Covenant of Christian Conduct)

Is there any difference in you?

What needs to change?

The best mission statement I’ve heard:

“To know the transforming Christ and be found faithful in our generation!”

Make it so, dear Lord.

Micah J. Sturm

The Church has convinced itself that what is embraced by our physical lives has absolutely no impact on our spiritual standing with God.

Thus, Christians can lie, cheat, steal, gossip, slander, murder, covet, and be just as promiscuous and perverse as anyone else without any real consequence to eternity.

However, what we allow to enter our minds, exits our mouths, become habits, and will either enhance or poison our relationship with Christ.

“Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused…So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies…Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.”

Romans 1:21, 24, 28-32 NLT

How we live really does matter!

Eternal security says, “Nothing we do or leave undone can change our claim to heaven!”

Blessed assurance says, “The Holy Spirit leads, guides, guards, and assures us that we are right with God!”

Micah J. Sturm

“For there were many in the congregation that were not sanctified” (2 Chronicles 30:17).

The history of God’s people reads like a relationship on a roller coaster.

A righteous king rules for some time leading the people in faithfulness to God. That pattern dies with the king only to be followed by a wicked monarch who defies everything to do with the righteousness and holiness of the one true God.

This ancient cycle remains among the Church today.

Like King Ahaz, whose name means “he grasped,” we have many in the congregation who are grasping at everything to find what’s missing in our lives.

We claim our identity as the children of God but are in practice serving substitutes—carving out our own image of truth (see 2 Chronicles 28:2).

In an attempt to blend in with the culture around us, we sacrifice our children on the altars of self-advancement (28:3).

We spread ourselves out and give all we have to everything except God (28:4); in fact, we even embrace and seek help from our enemy (28:16-23).

Our choices can contribute to the closing of the doors to the house of God (28:24) or, at least making the Church ineffective in our mission! There must be the recognition that something is very wrong with this!

When Ahaz dies, his son Hezekiah (“the strength of the LORD”) begins his reign with the desire to return to the point from which his father had departed.

Hezekiah orders the removal of all the filth! In the strength of God, he got rid of everything that contaminated or cluttered the dwelling place of God (29:5, 16-19).

Hezekiah invites the people of God to return to their roots by the renewed celebration of their Independence Day—Passover, when God delivered them from bondage in Egypt!

The desired return involves a rejection of their stubbornness, yielding themselves to the LORD, coming to His house, and serving Him (30:7-8).

There were critics (30:10) then and now. But those who responded had “singleness of heart” to obey the LORD (30:12)!

The people of God who joined the king in recognizing something was wrong, who removed the filth from within, who returned to their roots as those freed from their chains—these were renewed with rejoicing like they had never known (30:21, 25-26)!

I am convinced that this is the greatest need of the Church—entire sanctification as a miraculous moment of God’s grace that propels believers into limitless possibilities!

Too many of us live as Ahaz—grasping for things that promote us thus leading us further from the Lord. Let’s follow the pattern of Hezekiah and, in the strength of God:

(1) Realize that something is missing in our relationship with the Lord—too much self and clutter;

(2) Remove the filth that’s been permitted to infiltrate our hearts and lives;

(3) Return to our roots as holiness people—people set free by Christ and inhabited by His Spirit making us a different people;

(4) Renew our rejoicing—what we thought was gone forever can be restored in abundance!

The Church continues the roller coaster relationship with the Lord.

However, it is absolutely a possibility of divine grace to live with a stability of heart that keeps our focus intensely on Christ.

We’ve lived beneath our privilege and settled for a life of grasping when the strength of God is available!

What a difference our churches would make in this world and for eternity if MANY in the congregation WERE sanctified!

Micah J. Sturm

It’s happening at a rapid rate.

In the name of love, progress, and unity we’re diluting the truth to suit ourselves and society.

To dilute means “to corrupt, debase, or make impure by adding a foreign or inferior substance; often by replacing valuable ingredients with inferior ones.”

We dilute love when we delete the Source of love—“God is love” (1 John 4:8)

We pollute purity and vainly call it progress when we add to or subtract from the biblical standard of holiness.

We destroy unity when our definition of truth differs from “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” and popularity becomes the barometer of oneness.

Sin separates us from God.

Always has—always will.

Sin makes us less than who God created us to be.

Yet, it seems the Church is intoxicated with popularity.

We embrace what we should release.

We gloat when we should grieve.

We converse where we need to confess.

Inclusion in the family of God without transformation by the grace of God is a total delusion.

A delusion is “a belief that is not true; a false idea.”

The issue is not sin in the Church—we welcome those bound by sin—where else can sinners find freedom?

The delusion is that sinners are changed by a church in sin…or even worse, that there’s no transformation needed at all.

Delusion begins with distraction, leads to dilution, and ends in destruction.

It’s the way it always starts—

“Did God actually say…?”

“God didn’t mean what He said…”

We take the enemy’s bait and suffer because of it.

A humbling of ourselves in repentance and a hunger for a renewal of holiness is our only hope.

“I wish that you would bear with me in a little foolishness; but indeed you are bearing with me. For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin.

But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.

For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully.

No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds.”

(2 Corinthians 11:1-4, 14-15 NASB1995).

If your pastor opens the Bible and refuses to dilute the truth, then know that a target is on your pastor’s back.

Devilish forces are at work determined to defeat us with damnation in disguise.

The fact is that the truth triumphs!

The precious blood of Jesus cannot be diluted! He still cleanses from all sin!

Jesus can take us from diluted and less than to distilled (purified) and more than conquerors!

Micah J. Sturm

There IS such a thing as a Christian way of living—the holy way. The grace of God is abundantly sufficient to transform human hearts and enable us to live beyond the limits of ourselves.

Here are just a few helps to holy living by way of defining terms:

Humility means “I don’t have to be first”

Modesty means “not showing off”

Generous means “expecting nothing in return”

Faithful means “lovingly loyal at all costs”

Fellowship means “on the same mission”

Abstinence means “don’t go near it”

Obedience means “Yes, Lord”

Hope means “I know God will work it out”

Love means “I surrender all”

Jesus Christ is holiness housed in humanity and He is the singular theme of the Holy Bible—the Book on Holiness!

A holy heart will reflect Christ to a watching world. If we furnish the heart, then He will furnish the grace to make it possible!

Micah J. Sturm

Being born makes me a member of the human race, but will I be humane?

Enrollment in school makes me a student, but will I learn?

Getting hired makes me an employee, but will I work?

A wedding ceremony makes me a spouse, but will I have a marriage?

Leaving the hospital with a baby makes me a father, but will I be a daddy?

Receiving Christ into my heart makes me a Christian, but exactly how Christian will I be?

Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of God who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper…” (John 14:15).

“By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples” (John 15:8).

Paul preached, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control…and those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passion and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22-25).

As a boy I heard a preacher say, “Sitting in a church house makes you no more a Christian than sitting in a hen house makes you a chicken!”

Christ’s Church is not a structure, a denomination, or a code. It’s where the crucified and risen Jesus transforms lives and sends them out to be His reflection.

There are depths of God’s grace we have not experienced, there are possibilities we have not imagined, and the Lord invites us to be more like Him!

Let all Christians crave Christlikeness!

May we move out of the minimum requirements and into the maximum possibilities!

Micah J. Sturm

“Where do you stand on [insert any issue here]?”

My response:

“On an island between two worlds.”

At least that’s how I feel like responding.

Our culture divides over everything and the Church blindly joins in the fight.

Unity cannot come from divided hearts.

“Love” without boundaries is insufficient for our need. But holy love makes all the difference.

Holy love centers on Christ Jesus, not on us.

Holy love calls us to come just as we are, but refuses to leave us the way we are.

Holy love creates humility in the heart, replacing all pride.

Holy love is not learned by lecture or gained by effort, it is a supernatural gift of God gushing from His Spirit in continual waves of grace.

Whatever the issue, holiness is life that is controlled by love moment-by-moment.

That’s where I stand.