All or nothing!

I am now more convinced than ever that holiness must encompass all. There is within The (western) Salvation Army a compromised holiness that might appear slightly better than rampant worldliness but is actually an impertinent insult to God and his purity.

It might seem that going to band practice, not cursing, being a good employee, saying please and thank you, not falling out with other soldiers, attending bible study and tithing makes us better than the 'miserable sinners' around us but when we place such a belief in its true global context it looks as paltry as it actually is! Still, at least this kind of holiness allows me to 'set apart' money for the cable company each week so that I can watch sport on a Sunday.

According to a UN agency report published on Tuesday almost 1 billion people in the world are going hungry each day after the rising food costs have pushed 40 million more people into chronic hunger this year – every tear from a hungry child falls on the heart of God like acid on an open wound.

The western governments' goal of halving the number of hungry people by 2015 has suffered a "serious setback" as the current financial crisis has pushed more people, particularly in the developing world, toward hunger.

"For many countries, the world goal of reducing hunger by half is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve," Food and Agriculture Organisation Director-General Jacques Diouf said, referring to one of the Millennium Development Goals set in 2000. "This sad reality should not be acceptable at the dawn of the 21st century," he said, unveiling the Rome-based agency's annual report on world food insecurity. He added: "Even the objective of cutting by half the number of hungry by 2015 is morally unacceptable."

Is Jacques Diouf a Christian? I don't know – he's certainly not a Salvationist yet even he can see that even the objective of halving the number of hungry people in our world is 'morally unacceptable'.

Holiness, proper 'social holiness' (the only kind there is according to Wesley) puts everything (that's EVERYTHING) it has at God's disposal and says, Lord, take this and use it to feed the hungry, heal the sick, free the captives and preach the good news about Jesus.

Anything else – even if it looks good – is a lie and is gently lulling us into an uncertain eternity!

Grace and peace, A