Poverty Strongholds – Post Six – Lack of Holiness

1. Demons
2. Poor Stewardship – link to past article
3. Lack of Knowledge (common sense)
4. Mind Sets (faulty thinking)
5. Lack of Holiness
6. Agreements with the Enemy
7. Bad Theology
8. Blaming & Excuses
9. Refusing to be a Blessing
10. Pain Upon Pain

Let’s take a look at the next Poverty Stronghold – Lack of Holiness. By and large, within our christian communities, we do not seem to talk a lot about holiness and yet it is a critical piece of living within the Kingdom of God. It boils down to this: God is a holy God, and as He calls us He asks us to play the game (understand and know that the Kingdom is His and our participation requires we live by His rules) as he would have it played – this means that as God is holy we are called to be holy. We cannot flaunt unholy living, or hide sins in secret, while claiming and wanting a relationship with him and it’s impact and the influence that comes within the kingdom of God. To be in His kingdom means that we are abiding by the standards and parameters of that kingdom. Now to be clear, holiness is not something we can attain on our own. Our justification is in the work of Jesus and so too, is our sanctification. It is on Jesus that we rest for our holiness. This is important and critical to get right. We do not and cannot make ourselves holy. Having said that, we can though, interfere with, squander, and throw away our holiness. If we are not close-in to the presence of the Lord the cries of our flesh will take over. If we are not dead to our sin responses we may find them loud and strong. And if we do not remain purposed unto the holiness of our Lord we may become compromised in our faith-walk and our lives, (yes, all purposeful understatement). To purposely meddle in unholy things will remove us from the covering of our Lord Jesus Christ for we will be purposefully stepping out and away from him and his ways. The most stark example that I have witnessed of this was in Africa. He was a pastor with a huge anointing of the Holy Spirit upon his life. When he prayed the heavens shook. But he was without holiness. Over the course of a few days alongside this man it became apparent that many things were wrong. What had initially thrown me (why I was there in the first place) was the incredible anointing of the Holy Spirit. Yet I was quickly reminded that the anointing of the Lord is upon us because of who God is, and not because of who we are. In short, this man had a huge church structure, one of the biggest I have seen in Uganda. Yet, my first hour in his church I could sense a spirit of chaos and of confusion. Later, I saw that he had pornography on his data-stick. And then, I came to find that his congregation consisted of the prayer team of about six women… only six women in a sanctuary the size of a basketball court. Things had and were going seriously wrong with this man and his ministry. I saw other things that raised a red flag, both in practice and in terms of his heart motives; he was consistently toying with unholiness, and the Lord’s favor was leaving him. He had a giant church building with next to no congregation, a decreased influence within his community – it was a tragedy to see. What comes to mind is the parable of the talents as found in Matthew 25. Commonly considered to be about money I am convinced that the parable of the talents also can and does refer to the giftings of our lives, the anointing of the Spirit, the favor we have been given, the knowledge that we have, the wisdoms from the Lord, and more. Everything we are privileged to steward is given us by the Lord and must be taken care of, wielded with great care, and invested with diligence and intention. All of this requires that we see the big picture and part of this is that we must get it that our actions matter, our hearts matter, our decisions matter. Our holiness matters. A big part of what we have been given in Christ is holiness. We are set apart unto the Lords good works and there is no place for unholiness in the mix of this. Is there grace and restoration, of course, but only as we turn from our sin. Turning is key. It evidences a heart turned away from the sins that we love and turned toward our Lord who is holy, and who makes us holy. So, when we refuse this turning, when we want Christ but not his cleansing of our lives, we will remain in poverty of heart, soul, mind and body. God will not be mocked, he does not favor our lives if we are not favouring his Spirit by our lives. In this, we choose poverty of life, of relationships, of business dealings, and of ministry influence. We and our families and our influence suffers when we are not solid and abiding in holiness as a way of life.