Living Holy Lives in an Immoral World

Holiness is not something God requires only from Christians. He asked it of the Jewish people first, and as we previously discussed, He put laws in place to enable His people to stand out and be separate from the pagan world around them. The laws themselves would not make them holy, but they would help the people see what God saw as sin in order to keep themselves from it. After a time, the rulers of the law (those priests who enforced it) added their own rules and interpretations of holiness, and by doing so, became slaves to those laws. But Jesus saw their hearts and called them hypocrites. So let’s look at how Jesus showed “holiness” while he walked among us. Let’s also compare his actions to those of Christians and the church in general today.

We’ll start with the culture of the day and go from there. In particular, let’s look at the political situation of the day. Why? Because so much of what goes on in this world seems to revolve around politics and Christians have somehow got it in their minds there is only one Political Party of which God approves. In the States, it is the Republican Party, and in Canada, it is the Progressive Conservative Party. Did Jesus involve himself in politics? Would he do so today?