Stumbling in the Word

I stumbled this morning while reading the Word.  No, I was not reading from some handheld internet device, nor was I walking around while reading from the Bible.  Instead, I was just cruising along.  The verses were turning into chapters and I was on the way to really making some headway in my reading of some of Paul's stuff.  When I got to II Corinthians 7:1, I stumbled.  It was as if some mental foot got caught on a vine throwing me down and stopping dead my forward progress.

 

I picked myself up and went back to that verse which grabbed me and would not let go.  When I read it the second time, it read the same way it did the first time.  Actually, it was not the whole verse, but just a phrase from it which said, "...making holiness perfect in the fear of God."  I wondered how holiness was made perfect.  The first people I knew who were called holiness dressed in somber tones and always seem to take everything dead serious.  Is holiness made perfect by being more holy than they appeared to be?  Or, does it happen as we insist on the King James Version of the Bible and nothing else?  Or, maybe there is a holiness language to be learned and used?

 

As I found my mind returning to the phase throughout the day, it seemed that holiness is never going to be made perfect if it is something dependent on my actions, or any of our actions.  Holiness is not really about what we do, but about what God desires to do through the action of His Holy Spirit at work in a heart that is emptied and eager only for His presence.  We do not need more of the Holy Spirit to become more perfect in holiness.  Instead, we need to be sure the Spirit has all of our heart.  Give the Holy Spirit free reigns in the inner places of the heart and there is no end to the possibility of holiness being made perfect in us.