Analogies are helpful and here is a good one from a godly leader who now lives with Jesus. Jerry Bridges was a long time staff member with the Navigators, a discipleship ministry that started in the military but has expanded in to worldwide discipling movement.
Wise words from Jerry Bridges and his classic book The Pursuit of Holiness.
Here’s the analogy that Bridges uses:
“Farming is a joint venture between God and farmer. The farmer cannot do what God must do, and God will not do what the farmer should do.
We can say just as accurately that the pursuit of holiness is a joint venture between God and the Christian. No one can attain any degree of holiness without God working in his life, but just as surely no one will attain it without effort on his own part. God has made it possible for us to walk in holiness. But He has given to us the responsibility of doing the walking; He does not do that for us.”
A snap shot from Scripture:
17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness, 18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.
(2 Peter 3:17-18)
“being on your guard” takes concentrated effort
keeping yourself from falling
“from your own steadfastness” takes concentrated effort
“growing in the grace and knowledge” takes concentrated effort
None of those things just happen. They happen, if they happen, because we follow in obedience the way of Christ. That takes effort–effort that does not earn us anything, but is proof that we truly belong to Him. And yet it (holiness) is what He calls us to when He calls us to Himself. In the end, at our last breathe, there will be much that is still saturated with corruption. After all, “all our righteous deeds are but filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). There will still be dross to burn away. In the twinkling of an eye, He will finish the work (1 Cor. 15:52). He will clothe us with His holiness (2 Cor. 5:2-4, Rev. 3:5, 18; 4:4; 7:9 passim), giving us white robes fitted for heaven.
Pursuing holiness is what it means to be a believer in Christ and to belong to Him. And belonging to HIM, the crucified, resurrected and coming King and judge of the living and the dead (2 Tim. 4:1-2) is the destiny we live for. He, the Holy One who is not only holy but is the only one who can give us His holiness and clothe us for the glories of heaven. But like the analogy, there is a dance between us and Him like the dance between the farmer and God. He will only do His part, and it will make all the difference, but we must do our part as well.
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