20 Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. 21 Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”
8 And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not journey on it; it will be for those who walk in that Way; wicked fools will not go about on it. 9 No lion will be there, nor will any ferocious beast get up on it; they will not be found there. But only the redeemed will walk there.
6 Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near. 7 Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. 8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. 9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
1 Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails.
14 Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. 15 See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.
13 Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. 14 As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”
“Here’s the truth: Happiness isn’t apart from our holiness; it’s a part of it. Happiness isn’t the opposite of joy; it’s hemmed in. Happiness is a gift from a happy God. It’s permissible by God, and achievable through Him.” Jennifer Dukes Lee
“If you are really the chosen of God, and beloved by Him, do not allow all this lavish treasure of grace to be wasted on you. Pursue holiness; it is the Christian's crown and glory. An unholy church is useless to the world and of no esteem among men. It is an abomination, hell's laughter, heaven's abhorrence.” C. H. Spurgeon revised by Alistair Begg
“All we ever want for you is to be: radical about grace and relentless about truth and resolute about holiness and vows and the real hills worth dying on.” Ann Voskamp
“‘We are the same as the world’ is not the Christian motto. We do not champion a powerless grace. To do so excuses the idle in the church to ignore holiness. It belittles the power of the gospel to save sinners from their sin. And it dismisses the work and power of the Holy Spirit to make us holy. It tempts us to take our lamps down from atop the hill, normalizes the loss of our saltiness, and removes shining stars from a morally vacuous sky. We do not need more wicked-as-the-world trophies of His pardon. We need men, women, and children who were wicked as the world but are now trophies of His power.” Greg Morse
“We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. We will cast down the powers of darkness that are in the world by our faith and zeal and holiness; we will win sinners to Jesus; we will overturn false systems; we will convert nations. For God is with us, and none shall stand against us.” C. H. Spurgeon revised by Alistair Begg
“True Christianity is a struggle, a fight, and a warfare. . . . Where there is grace there will be conflict. The believer is a soldier. There is no holiness without a warfare. Saved souls will always be found to have fought a fight”. J.C. Ryle
“We need to give ourselves to what Horatius Bonar calls ‘daily littles.’ He writes, ‘The Christian life is a great thing, one of the greatest things on earth. Made up of daily littles, it is yet in itself not a little thing, but in so far as it is truly lived . . . is noble throughout’ (God's Way of Holiness, 127). If we want to persevere to the end, we need to maintain this dual perspective: (1) the Christian life is ‘a great thing,’ and (2) the Christian life is made up of ‘daily littles.’ Holiness happens one step at a time.” Scott Hubbard
“My people’s greatest need is my personal holiness.” Robert Murray M’Cheyne
Regarding the pursuit of holiness, Scottish Pastor Robert Murray M’Cheyne writes:
“I know you will apply hard to German, but do not forget the culture of the inner man – I mean of the heart. How diligently the cavalry officer keeps his saber clean and sharp; every stain he rubs off with greatest care. Remember you are God’s sword, His instrument – I trust, a chosen vessel unto Him to bear His name. In great measure, according to the purity and perfection of the instrument, will be the success. It is not great talents God blesses so much as likeness to Jesus. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God.”
“Believers who know Christ understand that delight and faith are so wonderfully united that the gates of hell cannot manage to separate them. Those who love God with all their hearts find that His ways are ways of pleasantness, and all His paths are peace. The saints discover in Christ such joy, such overflowing delight, such blessedness that far from serving Him from custom, they would follow Him even though the whole world rejected Him. We do not fear God because of any compulsion; our faith is no shackle, our profession is no bondage, we are not dragged to holiness, nor driven to duty. No, our piety is our pleasure, our hope is our happiness, our duty is our delight.” Charles H. Spurgeon
“The essence of true holiness consists in conformity to the nature and will of God.” Samuel Lucas