Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” “Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.” “I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”(NIV) 2Cor. 6:14-18
Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.(NIV) 2Cor. 7:1
I asked a child, one day, what he thought holiness meant. He explained holiness to be wearing a long white robe and a red belt and always attending church services. Well, there are some who develop strange ideas when we talk about holiness. What does it mean to be holy?
I believe today’s scripture text sufficiently defines holiness. “Therefore, come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing”. That whole process when you continuously and diligently make yourself different and separate from unbelievers or those of the world is true holiness.
We can safely extrapolate that holiness starts, primarily, from staying away from the specific things the bible has asked us to refrain from and even beyond that. It is clearly written in the bible not to murder, or fornicate, or commit adultery- the average Christian is aware of these. But how do we handle those issues which we lack firm biblical foundations to explain. E.g. from where in the bible can we prove that it is a sin: to kiss a partner you are not married to; to wear a particular dress; or to listen to worldly music? It is usually quite difficult to explain such and many other issues. The bible is informing us today that we should even do away with some of these practices for reasons better than just the mere “is it written in the bible?” That is, if a practice is not intrinsically sinful, it becomes sinful if it is associated with unbelievers. This is a better reason to eschew some things. This should be our final aim as Christians. We should learn to say: “It is not necessarily a sin, but so long as it makes me resemble those in the world, I am going to stop it”. This is what holiness is about.
Imagine I have nine black and one white marble put together in a container and I ask you to select the special one among them, you should instinctively pick up the white marble. God lives in us. The day approaches when He will look through this earth and pick the white marbles out of the black ones to “live with them” and within them. I pray you are not left behind by virtue of your colour.
"No man can expect to make progress in holiness who is not often and long alone with God."-Andrew Murray