Holy, Holy, Holy

Is there any religion in the world that so completely recognizes the need of mankind more than Christianity?  If all that was necessary for a good life was a better list of self-help suggestions or moral platitudes, then we would be fit for any challenge before us.  The world would be nobler and more reasonable than at any time in history for there has never been a time that such a proliferation of advice has been available.  Suicide should have long been eliminated along with drunkenness and violence.  Yet we are not better off than before...perhaps not worse off but that is certainly debatable.  It is a modern absurdity that religion can help us without a radical transformation of our soul.  Give any system of thought a societal landing spot and it will do nothing to make the people there better.  Cannibalism did not spring up in a vacuum; it originated in a religious subsystem that could not redeem the people who lived its tenets to its logical conclusion.  The treasured and time-honored practices of wife-burning, child sacrifice, abandonment of elders and prostitution all sprang out of religious cultural mores.  We are ignorant of the facts if we think we can make ourselves better people by getting something taught more effectively.  Religious atheism brought us the wonders of genocide and death camps.  The problem facing all mankind is the deadly plague of sinfulness that permeates every level of each society on earth.  One can read the Proverbs day and night, meditate all one wants upon the Decalogue and nothing good will come of it but a more subtle and pervasive sinfulness petrified by pride.  We need a savior completely .   The most common mistake we make is to assume we can gain Christ and then figure out everything else .  Your soul is not fixed by you in any way; only Christ entering you through the Cross can make you actually right...perfectly right.  As more of you becomes engaged with Jesus crucified, more of you becomes pure and holy.  Say "no" to Jesus Christ even for an instant and the wreckage of sin stiffens its neck and won't let you pass any further.  Your temper will stay, your lust will stay, your despairing fretting will stay, your arrogant self-righteousness will stay, your argumentative piety will stay, your cursing heart will stay.  The unbeliever generally can care less if he changes a whit...He is too comfortable to move off his twilight roosting.  But the Christian, who has tasted the sweetness of real holiness will never be able to rest contentedly with his sin self still established.  The only way to be done with it, and it will be eliminated fully, is to give the crucified Savior His way in each part of your doings, to make His life the life you live day in and day out.  Let your body be the Holy of Holies for Christ the King to rule...never say "no" to Him as He works out of you habits sin has worked into you.  Never trust yourself but never doubt the power of God working through you and in you.

May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.    Galatians 6:14-15 NIV