Holiness as it happens…

In May 2006 God called me to a very clear and specific lifestyle. I believe it was the 'fasted lifestyle' that Court and Munn refer to in their excellent book 'The Uprising'. It was the lifestyle alluded to in Booth's vision. It was the same lifestyle reflected in the life of St Francis and George Scott Railton. It is a lifestyle that it is completely and utterly absorbed by God and totally lost in his love.

May God forgive me for the length of time I have spent prevaricating over this clear and concise call.

Talk about vacillating – my life - since receiving this call, has been a rollercoaster of commitment, obedience and victory followed by the plummeting and hellish compromise that is always the ultimate consequence of disobedience. I have lost count of the number of times I have blogged about being 'in a corner'!

Tonight, in my study, I engaged in the most titanic struggle with the evil one. How he longs to cling to my life and retain lordship… all he needs is a 'foothold'. Like the rich young ruler I could excel in righteousness to the point of lacking just one thing – but my failure to surrender that one thing would be all Satan needs to retain ownership. I cannot say that the battle is won for I feel that these deep-seated and battle hardened monsters will not leave simply because of a few words. They need to see 'fruit that proves my repentance'and by God's grace they will!

We stumble not over the 'sinful things' but over the 'doubtful things'. I am fed up of stumbling! I am not on this planet for me; my object in life is not to fulfil my own ambitions but to be a tool in God's hands for him to do with as he pleases!

My life, thoughts, hopes, influence, words, money, time, resources, passion – these things are mine to do with as I see fit. I have just two choices (for those spiritual powers who battle for my soul will not allow me to retain rights of ownership) – I either commit myself fully and unreservedly to God or I slip into the hand of the enemy. In war one cannot hope to survive for very long in no man's land!

How can I possibly refrain from making the commitment that God so obviously requires?

I here and now renew the promises I made in my Soldier's covenant and in my Officer's covenant and I add to those solemn undertakings a commitment my own God-given holiness manifesto.

I do this because I must, because I have no option, because I am compelled by God's love and all of heaven's might.

It is quite literally 'holiness or hell' not just for me but for the thousands of people that God longs to reach through me.

I sincerely ask those who know me, either via the internet, or personally to keep me accountable to these promises and challenge me whenever it seems evident that I am slipping into the comfortable arms of second-rate consecration.

Love and prayers

A

Consecration or compromise? holiness or hell?

Jesus reduced the complex Jewish legal system down to just two simple straightforward commands:

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two.”

Jesus was able to do this by simply removing the word ‘not’ from the end of ‘thou shalt not’ and thereby turning reactive legalism into proactive righteousness. By replacing a list of what we couldn’t do with a list of what we ought to do Jesus was able to condense the entire Jewish law into just two short sentences.

At the same time he did this he also reduced the list of sins for which a Christian can be condemned to just one. The only sin a Christian can ever commit is the sin of compromise.

The greatest commandment demands the active surrender of all that I have and the second commandment gives me back the time and space I need to satisfy the needs of family and friends. Beyond meeting my ‘neighbours’ needs every minute, every penny and every influence I have must be entirely dedicated to God.

Just before William Booth died he was asked what had set him apart from other men, was it the fact that he had given all he had to God? The old man replied that there was nothing remarkable in such an act of devotion and that many people had given their all to God; the founder went on to say that what made his personal consecration remarkable was that he had never taken anything back.

Holiness – that supreme love that gladly gives all I have to God – is the only way forward for the Christian, but sadly, most Christians having laid all on the altar keep returning to take bits back – like a child chipping away at an Easter egg they are supposedly saving for later, in short they compromise.

Compromise is the killer of radical Christianity, there can be no such thing as primitive Salvationism without a constant, hour by hour consecration of all I have to God. The only reasonable act of Christian worship acceptable to God is a ‘living sacrifice’ – nothing else will do.

‘Without holiness none shall see the Lord’ not in our own lives, in our Corps, in our Division, neither in our territory nor indeed throughout the Army world.

There is only one choice - consecration or compromise, holiness or hell, there is no middle ground.