HOLINESS OPENS UNIMAGINABLE OPPORTUNITIES

Sanctified Sanity is the title of a valuable, well written work by David Rightmire in which he presents the life and thought of Samuel Logan Brengle.  It’s well worth checking out on Amazon.  Brengle was an expositor of holiness.  Rightmire’s writing is helpful because holiness is a very misunderstood reality, yet available to every believer in Christ.  

In Heart Talks On Holiness, one of Brengle’s many books on the topic, he makes it very clear what holiness is not: 1) not necessarily a state in which there is perpetual, rapturous joy; 2) not a state of freedom from temptation; 3) not a state of freedom from infirmities; 4) not a state of freedom from affliction; 5) not a state in which there is no further development; and 6) not a state from which our faith cannot dissipate.

In Brengle’s teachings holiness suggest that holiness is a state of “conformity to the divine nature.”  He says in Heart Talks On Holiness, “God is love, and there is a sense in which a holy man can be said to be love.  He is like God, not in God’s natural perfection of power and wisdom and knowledge and omnipresence, but in patience, humility, self-control, purity of heart, and love.  As the drop out of the ocean is like the ocean, not in its bigness, but in its essence, so is the holy soul like God.  As the branch is like the vine, not in self-sufficiency, but in it nature, its sap, its fruitfulness, its beauty, so is he that is holy like God.”

 

For Brengle, holiness was simply to be like Christ.  This is made possible by faith, the daily process of growing in grace given by God, and encountering God as He cleanses our hearts and an fills us with His Holy Spirit.  

Brengle makes clear the outcomes of holiness: 1) a constancy of spirit; 2) perfect peace, peace with God, peace of God; 3) joy perfected even in the middle of sorrow, trials, and temptations; 4) Love made perfect as divine love planted in the heart. “It flames upward toward God and spreads abroad toward all men;” 5) the Bible becomes a new book as God speaks to the soul; 6) holiness gives us a shepherd’s spirit, one of courtesy, compassion, and unselfish devotion; 7) temptation is easily recognized and overcome; 8) divine courage possesses the heart, so "no fear."  I like the title of David Rightmire’s book because it suggests to me yet another outcome of holiness, our sanctified sanity.  Holiness makes sense in the context of increasing intimacy with God.

The Apostle Paul expresses the blessing of holiness in his letter to the Ephesians (3:16-19) as personally grasping the magnitude of God’s love in a way that surpasses just intellectual knowledge and is known intimately by the heart.  He says then that we may be “filled to the measure of the fullness of God.”  Then in verse 20 we see what is possible when we receive the fullness of God.  Paul says “Now unto Him who is able to do immeasurably more that we ask or imagine . . .” In other words, a life of holiness opens us up to unimaginable possibilities for service and living in Christ, something you won’t want to miss.

To be like Jesus!  This hope possesses me, 

In every thought and deed, this is my aim, my creed;

To be like Jesus! This hope possesses me, 

His Spirit helping me, Like Him I'll be.