We must continually remind ourselves of the purpose of life. We are not destined to happiness, nor to health, but to holiness. Today we have far too many desires and interests, and our lives are being consumed and wasted by them. Many of them may be right, noble, and good, and may later be fulfilled, but in the meantime God must cause their importance to us to decrease. The only thing that truly matters is whether a person will accept the God who will make him holy. At all costs, a person must have the right relationship with God.

Do I believe I need to be holy? Do I believe that God can come into me and make me holy? If through your preaching you convince me that I am unholy, I then resent your preaching. The preaching of the gospel awakens an intense resentment because it is designed to reveal my unholiness, but it also awakens an intense yearning and desire within me. God has only one intended destiny for mankind— holiness. His only goal is to produce saints. God is not some eternal blessing-machine for people to use, and He did not come to save us out of pity— He came to save us because He created us to be holy. Atonement through the Cross of Christ means that God can put me back into perfect oneness with Himself through the death of Jesus Christ, without a trace of anything coming between us any longer.

Never tolerate, because of sympathy for yourself or for others, any practice that is not in keeping with a holy God. Holiness means absolute purity of your walk before God, the words coming from your mouth, and every thought in your mind— placing every detail of your life under the scrutiny of God Himself. Holiness is not simply what God gives me, but what God has given me that is being exhibited in my life.

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Journal Entry for Today

September 1, 2010

Very early this morning we were talking and you reminded me that when I ask you to respond my prayers, that I may be allowing my limited understanding and natural eyes to restrict my faith and get in the way. It then occurred to me that when I seek my “natural answers” …only those answers and solutions I can fathom, that I might be in the way of the miracles You want to provide.

And God says…”If I already know your needs before you even utter them, and if I can and do answer your prayers before you ever pray them, then why do you pray? Why have I commanded you to pray? Because it is a living dialog that helps create and sustain our intimate relationship.”

“When you pray with your expectations as narrow as your natural mind can understand, your faith is as narrow as your expectations. And I respond to your faith. When you pray with expanded supernatural expectations I can respond to that faith. Pray for “eyes” that expect miracles, and the faith to wait on Me while living and becoming holy, by allowing Jesus to live through you. Focus on Jesus, be transformed ……….holy and expectant.