Philip Dampier's Blog

Achieving Holiness

We cannot achieve holiness by acting holy. Nor do we achieve holiness by incremental steps of obedience and faith. Then how do we achieve it? Where does it come from? To achieve holiness we must repent of sins but repentance does not within itself create holiness. We could say the same for faith and any ‘works’ that faith produces.

Jeremiah (13:23) asks, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil.” You have as good a chance of achieving holiness on your own as a person changing their skin or a leopard its spots. Not going to happen.

Holiness belongs to God and is a gift of God to those who receive His Holy Spirit. Holiness begins on the inside and works it way to the outside. God lends us His holiness and the Holy Spirit grows that holiness within us until we become holy. If we do not heed the Holy Spirit within us we will never achieve holiness.

Task for Today: Are you in touch with the Spirit who is within you? Is He growing holiness within you? It is the Spirit’s work to transform us from unholy to holy but it is our responsibility to allow Him to do so.