1 Peter 1:13-16
“Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’”.
The month of February has been rough, and it seems like challenges and troubles are behind every door and yet we are called to be holy for He, the Creator of all things, is holy.
The path to holiness requires an active approach, as opposed to being stagnant. This involves:
1) Preparing your minds for action. We must not let down our guard for we know that challenges are coming to test us in our holiness.
a. Guarding your mind requires prayer, meditation on God’s word, and fellowship with the saints.
2) Being sober-minded. How often our judgments and actions come from an irrational place based on emotions.
a. You cannot think and feel at the same time and often when we walk away from holiness it is because we are not thinking rationally or clearly.
I had an opportunity to share with our youth about sexual immorality and it stemmed from the above verse in 1 Peter, after which I had intended to reference 1 Corinthians 6 to expound on what happens when we walk outside of God’s call to holiness and give ourselves up to sexual immorality.
However, I decided to drastically change my message when I saw the crowds of young children and realised that a powerful and effective message cannot come from a place of anger against unholiness, but instead, from a place of compassion and understanding.This is the reality on the mission field wherein being innovative and flexible is a must in order to be our most effective in field without compromising God’s true intention as we share His word to the people. Different circumstances call for different approaches on how we can communicate God’s divine character, His love, His holiness, and His salvation. So, changing the flow of my message, I shared my story of sexual promiscuity in my youth instead, and how even to this day it still torments me because I did not prepare my mind for action, nor was I sober-minded. I was thankful to the Holy Spirit for humbling me and redirecting my message.
With the above experience, God gave me the word “confession” for this year. I am still not a hundred percent sure why God gave this word, but I think it is beautiful, and I am sure it will gradually reveal something about Him that He is trying to redirect my attention to.
I believe that holiness requires true, sincere and active confession to our Lord Jesus, and in community with others. If we are to prepare our minds for action, we must first set our hearts right. Our heart is where our true intentions, our emotions and our deepest desires are seated. Hence, it needs to be cleansed through confession so that we might be holy and that our minds can then be prepared for action and sober.
1 John 1:9 expresses this clearly that we must confess before our Maker, for this is what cleanses us and makes us new. Furthermore, confessing our sins with one another as it says in James 5 that our sins will be forgiven if we confess our sins to one another and pray for one another.
Our path to holiness, to prepare our minds for action, begins with this confession. It will free us from the bondage of past decisions that were not in line with God’s word, and we can then begin the process of sanctification as He, our Creator, is holy.