E56 The Holiness Gap: When We Say We Love Jesus But Still Make Excuses

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Jen Cudmore (00:00)
Why don’t we take holiness more seriously?

This question’s been on my mind for a few days and in recent observations, it seems like followers of Jesus only want to talk about things that feel glamorous like victory in Jesus, the promises of God, blessing, favor. And those things are important. I don’t mean to diminish that, but what about living a righteous life? I mean, not very many people are talking about this. I’m certainly not, right? But we are called to pursue holiness. mean, even I,

I’m not comfortable like talking about sin. I know I need to get over that, but this is a conversation that needs to be had more often. So let’s be uncomfortable together. Join me for today’s discussion around why holiness matters and how to pursue it in practical ways every day. Here we go.

Welcome back to Into the Depths podcast. This is where we have conversations that go below the surface of normal life. And so I’ve been wondering lately, like, have you ever heard this phrase that goes something like this? The followers of Jesus must have nothing in common with the enemy. This is a phrase that I had heard recently and ⁓ the concept’s been on my mind a lot the last few days just because of some things that God’s been showing me around the idea of holiness and.

The other night a few this was it just a few nights ago I woke up several times in the middle of the night and I kept hearing this phrase in my mind nothing in common nothing in common and I was like What is going on? Like I felt like the Lord was trying to get my attention about something but I didn’t know where he was going with that and so I was trying to remember like where did I hear this teaching before

around the idea of not giving the enemy a foothold and I couldn’t remember so I had to do some research but ⁓ let me just pause and give you a side note like the the day before I had been starting to feel really convicted over a specific area in my life because I had chosen to be offended at something that

was said by a friend of mine and God was kind of challenging me to ⁓ think about the idea of how often do I allow people to upset me and hurt my feelings and it was really kind of a hard pill to swallow because I had to accept the fact that there are areas where I am easily offended and that was I mean that makes me cringe even now because I’ve worked really hard at not being a judgmental and critical person and yet there’s still these areas where I’ve been making

excuses for ⁓ saying that it’s okay to get offended by certain things that people might say or do and God doesn’t like that. He doesn’t even want us to give one millimeter towards sin and it can be so easy as a believer to make excuses and ⁓ try to brush off things like offense because

Technically, it’s not a sin to become offended. It’s a sin to stay there. It’s a sin to let that turn into criticism and judgment and bitterness and unforgiveness. so anyhow, I say all of that because I was aware that offense is a big deal, that God doesn’t like us to get easily offended. In fact, offense is the bait of Satan. And if you haven’t heard that teaching, I challenge you to go look for it.

People fall for this tactic of the enemy so much. It’s really kind of scary. We don’t see anything wrong with becoming offended. And that’s a whole nother topic, but this had been on my heart and I knew God wanted to.

I knew God wanted me to dig a little deeper into this topic and sort of reach into the reasons behind or the roots behind why I have allowed ⁓ offense to creep in in certain areas of my life. so going back to being woken up in the middle of the night and having nothing in common with the enemy, that actually comes from a Bible verse.

And so let me read you the scripture. It’s John 14 verse 30. And Jesus is talking and he says, the prince of this world is coming. So he’s referring to Satan. And he has no hold over me. And so there’s other versions that use the phrase, he has no power over me. He has no claim on me. He has nothing in me. There’s nothing that he can use against me. He has nothing in common with me.

So those are some of the different way that that phrase is translated. And so, I don’t know, for me, I felt like this was easy to just brush off and be like, well, of course they have nothing in common, right? Jesus is God. he like, and Satan is the opposite of God, right? He’s nothing, they’re nothing alike. So of course they’re not gonna have anything in common.

But the point that I’ve seen recently is that Jesus is also fully human and he chose to live a holy life. so that’s.

Why he had nothing in common was because he was choosing that. And as a believer, our goal is to become like Jesus. So if Jesus had nothing in common with the enemy and he was fully human, that means I am capable of not having things in common with the enemy. And so why is this a problem? Why am I bringing all this up and explaining all of this? Because here’s the thing. What I’m seeing is that there’s so many believers that don’t take sin seriously. And I just shared an example with you.

about how I was not taking it seriously that I was holding on to some offense the other day.

So many believers are not setting up good boundaries in their lives. I mean, some of them, unfortunately, you would never even know that they were saved because they’re not any different. They’re not living any different than the people of the world.

they make excuses for sin or they call it something else. They don’t see it as wrong even though God labels it as wrong and then they’re not recognizing how they’re letting Satan get a foothold in their life.

Jesus said in the book of John in a couple places, like his followers are not of this world. And if you’re a follower of Jesus, you’re supposed to look different from the world. Romans 12 tells us, do not conform to the ways of the world. We’re supposed to be set apart. So that means we have to take sin seriously. Like we can’t make excuses. We can’t brush it off. Like we cannot get away with some of the things that we would like to get away with if we,

God calls us to a more holy, righteous way of living. I think of 1 Peter.

Chapter one, verse 15, 16, it says, but just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all that you do, for it is written in Leviticus, he’s referring to a passage in Leviticus that says, be holy as I am holy. So I looked up the verse in Leviticus, because I wanted to be super clear on where the Lord was going with this, and it says, I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves and be holy because I am holy.

I am the Lord who brought you up out of Egypt. I deliver, you know, I’ve delivered you to be your God. Therefore be holy because I am holy. And so, I don’t know, to me, it feels pretty clear. God’s not asking us, hey, would you consider trying to live a righteous life? No, he’s telling us, I would really like you. Like this is a command. I want you to live holy like I’m holy. Try to be like me. And so that begs the question, okay, if this is really important to the Lord and he’s asked

us a couple of times to do this, to live like this, what does it mean? What does holy look like? I don’t know that I have all the answers. Well, let me rephrase. I do know that I don’t have all the answers for you today, but I just want to get you thinking about this topic because it’s been on my heart and I felt really convicted for those little areas where I’ve been letting sin slide and I’ve been making excuses. So

When you choose to keep sinning, and this includes like not just the really big sins, what we have labeled being in small, this really includes all the small ones too, right? In God’s eyes, you missed the mark period. There’s no big or small. You missed the mark.

But it’s super easy to say, you know, that’s not me. I would, I don’t behave like that. I’ve never done that. And I want to give you an example. Several years ago, I was reading a book on prayer. And one of the things that the author challenged you to do was go through a list of sins and just seriously contemplate. Have I, have I lived like this? Have I done this recently? And do I need to confess and repent? And of course I went through the list, which was crazy long. And I just thought it was really silly. Like what, what in

world. ⁓ And I really did not take that seriously. I ran through the list, said, nope, that’s not me. And I moved on. And I realized later when she challenged us to go back through it again, I was like, okay, well, I probably shouldn’t be so quick to just brush that off. Like maybe there really is something in there that I need to deal with. And I went back through the list again and I was like, ⁓ God’s kind of pricking me on that one. I’m feeling a little convicted on that. I didn’t

recognize that the way I handled this situation was out of line with the way God would have wanted me to. And so the more I went through the list, the more I was like, okay, let me pause for a minute and actually genuinely try to reflect on is there anything that I’ve done here that has grieved God’s heart. And it was very eye opening and very humbling for sure. And I went through that book again, probably a year and a half ago. And again, the same thing I made myself go through that list a couple

times because the first time I went through that I was like nope I don’t sin there I don’t sin there I don’t sin there and I was like there is no way I got through this whole list of common sins and didn’t do any of them and so I made sure to really set aside some time to dig deep and reflect okay Lord please convict me please prick my heart because I don’t want to hold on to things or make excuses for things that hurt you that you don’t like and

It’s so easy to be like, I’m not a greedy person. I don’t lie. Pride is not an issue for me. And boy, if we would really let the Lord search our heart and give him space you will be surprised at some of the things that he points out that you’ve excused away.

So what does it look like to be holy? It means taking sin seriously and choosing to deal with it and really go deep and confess and repent. That’s the first thing. Another thing is allowing the things of the world to be your master or when you’re living according to your flesh and what feels good instead of the…

standards that God has put in place in the Bible. I mean this this can cover so many things I think of addictions being a big one. Things that we allow to control us and have they become our master like addiction to sugar or porn electronics. I mean the Bible says everything is permissible but it’s when we get out of balance

Not everything is beneficial. So just because you can doesn’t mean you should. And you need to know your own weaknesses because we think enslavement looks like addiction to drugs or alcohol, like those major things that ruin your life in a more public way, I guess you could say. But there’s so much more to it. I think I shared this story before. God really got on my case several years ago about reading too many novels and I was reading Christian novels, like clean. And he said, ⁓

is going to skew your perspective of your marriage and you’re going to place wrong expectations on your husband because this is a false reality. So you need to bring that into balance. And so I have learned to be really careful with how much I read novels because I don’t want to get sucked into a false reality that could ruin any of my relationships. Well, in this case, ruin my relationship with my husband. And so there’s so many areas where is reading a novel a sin? No.

reading a novel or these there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s when it becomes a God to you, when it becomes an idol to you, when it becomes so much more important than your responsibilities and it begins to skew your outlook on life because you do it so much. another area where the things of this world or your flesh can be your master is

⁓ Fear. Fear is easily overlooked, think, especially in our culture today where anxiety seems to be so big and it feels normal. It’s normal to have anxiety is what the world is telling us. it can be hard to recognize when we’re allowing fear to have control over us, when we’re letting fear run our lives. The fear of the Lord has to be greater than any other fear. And I don’t say that lightly. God’s challenging me on this in multiple ways. But we have to learn how to not let fear

be our master. We can’t submit to anything except for the Lord. So anyhow, I’m sure I could go a lot deeper into that, but another way, you know, another ⁓ practical explanation of what it looks like to live a holy life I’m sorry, to not live a holy life is when you refuse to get healing, when you refuse to… ⁓

get freedom from the wounds and healing for your heart. The enemy uses your pain and insecurities against you. He does it all the time. This is why it is so important that you get the help that you need. You may have to go to a professional, especially if there’s trauma involved. We’ve got to get past that lie that we don’t need professional help or that we can figure it out on our own.

There are some things you can get healed from just between you and the Lord, but there are a lot of things that you can’t. You’ve got to have another person help you because you cannot fully see the big picture. You’ve got to get help from a pastor or a Christian teacher or even a health professional to help you deal with the stuff that’s going on in your heart. Because if you don’t, the enemy gets access to those wounds and can wreak havoc in your life and create all

sorts of torment. You’ve got to get healed. You’ve got to go find freedom.

And then the other big thing I would say that gets in the way of holiness is brushing off the idea of renewing your mind. Like you just don’t bother capturing your thoughts and making them obedience to Christ. You don’t take it seriously when God says, here’s the list of things I want you to think about and what I want you to focus on in Philippians 4, 8, whatever is true, noble, right, lovely. I

I’ve heard the cop out that I’m a realist and personally I think that’s just an excuse to be negative. ⁓ The lie that there’s nothing wrong with venting except for that the Bible is clear in a couple places it says he doesn’t like it when we complain. He doesn’t want us to complain. We make excuses around what gets our attention.

Is your form of entertainment pleasing to the Lord? Kind of like what I said before with novels, it was out of balance. So it was displeasing to the Lord. Would he like all those reels that you’re watching? Would he sit beside you on the couch while you’re watching those reels? Would you be comfortable with that? Or would he want you sitting for hours and hours scrolling through social media? If he was sitting right there next to you, would you keep doing what you’re doing?

Would he want you to watch that TV show that’s got all those ungodly themes and ungodly characters in it? Like we have to be careful to set boundaries. I don’t believe there’s one right way for everybody. I think the scripture is clear when it talks about you need to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling because we all have different weaknesses.

For example, one of my most favorite things about my husband is that he comes from a family where alcoholism is very prevalent. And so from the very beginning when we were dating, he was very careful to not be around alcohol. And we’ve been married for 26 years and we hardly ever bring any alcohol into our house. When we go out, ⁓ he never drinks. He’s very careful. I would say in 26 years, I’ve seen him drink maybe twice. And I am so proud of him

He is like, don’t want anything to do with that because it is a weakness in my family and if I even open the door a little crack, it can give the enemy a foothold and it can get me sucked into this addictive behavior that can ruin my life and ruin my family. And I will not go down that road. And this is one of the things I admire so much about him is he takes that so seriously. He has even drilled that into our kids’ heads. Look, you have got to be responsible. If you are gonna choose to drink alcohol, you better be aware

that this is a big deal in our bloodline, that this has been a huge problem in the past. that is a bent, a generational bent that if you don’t set really tight boundaries, the enemy can sneak right in create a stronghold and really mess things up. I just am so, so grateful that he has taken that seriously and not only behave that way, but then taught that to our children.

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Here’s why it matters where you put up boundaries. There’s lots of families that don’t have problems with addiction to alcohol or drugs they maybe don’t need to be have as tight of boundaries They can go to a bar and not fall into sinful behavior we do have to be careful like not to put specific black and white ⁓ Rules around what you can or can’t do as a believer but boundaries, know, they’re gonna look different for every

person depending on your weakness but you’ve got to know where to put them for yourself and that just takes some working out with the Lord.

It’s just so easy, so easy to get focused on what you want, what you like, what you prefer. And you forget to stop and ask, wait a minute, what would God say about this situation? Would God want me to behave this way? Would God want me to indulge in this? Where should I put my boundaries on participating in this thing or this activity And honestly,

I would throw out there too, if you have to use the words, it’s not that bad, that’s a huge red flag, and you better go to the Lord and ask him to help you figure it out, because I have used that so many times and realized that was a cop out and that I was just trying to excuse behavior when I knew the Lord wouldn’t want me to participate in a certain activity. And then here’s the caution, I had somebody in a prayer meeting yesterday

threw this out and cautioned me because, you know, I was talking about consecration and what does it mean to be set apart? What does it look like to try to pursue holiness in your daily life? And she said,

Remember don’t take this too seriously because it’s not about perfection and I thought ⁓ that you know that was a word for me because definitely for people like me who have been performance driven who have really ⁓ you know, they get they tend to get their value from a place of accomplishment and they feel purpose when they’re productive and that that it has been my personality we do have to be careful of the temptation towards perfection because it’s not about being good enough and

It’s about continuing to grow, continuing that sanctification journey where we’re letting the Lord continue to take us down that road of making us more like Jesus. there’s that tension of, as soon as we become a Christian, because of what Jesus did on the cross, dying for our sins,

that act made us righteous, like we are the righteousness of God, but we also have to remember that we’re still growing in righteousness. It’s like we’re already that, but we’re still becoming that, right? And it’s a weird, I think it’s hard for most of us to really grasp that, but there is that tension in there of learning to be holy while also understanding that we’re never gonna be perfect.

So I just wanted to do this episode because this topic has been on my heart and it’s just been, I’ve been so challenged in those places where I’ve been letting things slide and I haven’t been sticking to boundaries and I feel like I could do better. And so ladies, I really think like we’ve got to take the pursuit of holiness more seriously. If you want to leave a healthy legacy for your family, if you want to live your best life, if you want to become all that God has designed

you to be, then you’ve got to take holiness seriously. And if you want to see positive transformation in your home, in your family, in your city, state, country, if you want to see revival in the land, you have got to take holiness more seriously. You’ve got to pursue righteousness in your life day by day. What does that look like? Because revival starts in our own heart, right? We’ve got to deal with the junk in our own heart.

You’ve got to learn to be grieved by the things that grieve the Lord. And I think that is a process. The more you get to know Him, the more you spend time with Him and really seek what’s on your heart, God, the more you’re going to desire to live a holy life. So as you go about this week, let’s explore the depths of this final thought. Where have you been pursuing holiness or maybe not pursuing holiness?

where might you need to put up some boundaries around the things of the world or even your flesh and what feels good in the moment.

Would you say that other people can see a difference in you? Can they see Jesus in your attitudes and behaviors, not necessarily your words or what you post on social media? Where are you seeking to become more like Jesus? Just some thoughts to ponder. Bless you, friend. Have a great week. We’ll see you next time.