Without Holiness, no one shall see the Lord

Spurgeon writes that…You will not gain holiness by standing still. Nobody ever grew holy without consenting, desiring, and agonizing to be holy. Sin will grow without sowing, but holiness needs cultivation. Follow it; it will not run after you. You must pursue it with determination, with eagerness, with perseverance, as a hunter pursues his prey.

God smote an angel down from heaven for sin, and will He let man in with sin in His right hand? God would sooner extinguish heaven than see sin despoil it. It is enough for Him to bear with your hypocrisies on earth. Shall He have them flung in His own face in heaven?

Christ will be master of the heart, and sin must be mortified. If your life is unholy, your heart is unchanged; you are an unsaved person. If the Savior has not sanctified you, renewed you, given you a hatred of sin and a love of holiness, the grace which does not make a man better than others is a worthless counterfeit.

Christ saves His people, not in their sins but from them. Without holiness “no man shall see the Lord” (Heb 12:14). “Let every one that names the name of Christ “depart” (a command, not a suggestion) from iniquity”. If not saved from sin, how can we hope to be counted among His people?

The Alpine hunter, when pursuing the antelope, will leap from crag to crag, will wear out the live-long day, will spend the night upon the mountain’s cold brow. He then descends to the valleys and up again to the hills as though he could never tire, and could never rest until he has found his prey.

So perseveringly, with strong resolve to imitate your Lord and Master, follow peace with all._- Compiled (preceptaustin.org)

*The choice to pursue holiness is a matter of life or death*