Skip to main content

Pursuing Holiness

2024 Blog 1 – 1st February

 

Happy New Year! I hope you have had some time off over Christmas, and are refreshed and relaxed. We had our daughter visit for a week, then we went to visit our son and his family for a few days. What a blessing to have family who are close, supportive and loving.

 

After that relaxing start my January got busy. Usually, January is my time to refresh without any responsibilities within the church and it is also when I can catch up on some home chores before getting back into the busyness in February. However, this year, due to a situation with our ministers, various groups in the church were asked to take responsibility for a specific Sunday each. Unfortunately, I was in three of those groups so found that on each of those three Sundays I had responsibilities that also required some preparation. God is my strength and I have made it through and are now trying to fit a few things in before all the programs start up in the next couple of weeks.

 

I have been reading a book written by Samuel Logan Brengle, a Commissioner in The Salvation Army in the 1800’s and retiring in 1931. His brief was The Salvation Army’s International Spiritual Ambassador of Holiness and one of his several books was called Helps to Holiness. It leaves no room for excuses and really convicted me! So I have decided to study and pursue holiness. I actually thought I was a pretty good Christian until I read his book, now I can see how far I have yet to go. So I am asking God all sorts of questions.

 

“What does holiness look like for me?”

“What is it you want me to do?”

“What do you require me to give up?”

“How do I live a holy life in the midst of a sinful world?”

 

And more!  One thing I do know, is that God will journey with me and will ever be faithful to continue His work in me. May you too experience His presence in your own journey.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Planting Seeds

  Carrying on from last week, I was wondering how I am sowing seeds. I realised that we can all sow seeds everywhere we go. I don’t go out that often actually, I don’t belong to any secular groups but I can still be responsive to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Under his leading I made a determined effort to get to know the names of all the staff at my two favourite cafés that I visit at least weekly. I ask about their families; I support where I can. My friends and I find opportunities to give them all a little gift of chocolate and a card with a verse of scripture written on it. They all know we are Christians. I guess that might be called planting seeds. I converse with the supermarket checkout operators just to have a chance to bring a blessing to them. Some of them now know I am a Christian. I can easily bring God into conversations with unsaved family members, neighbours and strangers I stop and talk to in the park—with the leading of the Holy Spirit. I do not adopt a heavy...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Importance of Unity

  What do you do when you think the Pastor or Senior Leadership Team have got it wrong! A friend was recently talking about a decision made by our Senior Leadership Team (SLT) including the Pastor. We are a small church community, so decisions affect every member there. However, unless directly involved in a programme or initiative the SLT do not know how a decision they make might impact on the on-the-ground day-to-day running of that programme or initiative. It is important to talk to those involved to get their perspective and even in a small church this might not necessarily happen. Having said that, our SLT are generally very good at consulting. So, what do you do if you think it’s an unwise decision? This will of course depend on size of the church, whether the Pastor is a good listener and is prepared to talk about it and I’m sure, many other factors. My perspective is that I do not want to be talking about the Pastor behind his back. I do not want to gossip about him ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Taking Time Out

  I had the privilege this week of attending a retreat with five other women. The retreat was over three days but unfortunately some of the nine women who intended to go, were unable to as other urgent commitments came up and needed to be kept. So it became a bit different than expected. Six of us attended the first day, but two of us could only go for the day. Another two were going out the following day for the rest of the retreat. Unfortunately one of our ladies became quite sick and to her disappointment missed it all. However, the day I attended was blessed.   The retreat was held at a beach house belonging to one of the group, at an isolated beach about an hours drive away. It was a beautiful sunny day. We deposited our bags and the first thing we did after admiring the view, was to have a cup of tea. This lead to a lovely lazy discussion about all sorts of things, a great introduction to spending time together. Following this we spent about an hour studying and discus...
Post a Comment
Read more