Monday, 18 June 2018

In holiness and righteousness


Serve the Lord in holiness and righteousness

That we should be saved from our enemies And from the hand of all who hate us, To perform the mercy promised to our fathers And to remember His holy covenant, The oath which He swore to our father Abraham: To grant us that we, Being delivered from the hand of our enemies, Might serve Him without fear, In holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life. – Luke 1.71-75

There is another way that we, being delivered from our enemies, ought to be serving the Lord. We ought to serve, not only without fear, but in holiness and righteousness all the days of our lives.

It is not enough for us just to serve. Anyone can go through the motions of serving and even do a decent job at it. Things can get done and we can even look like successes even when we serve out of the flesh. A lot of things carry on that way and look good enough on the outside.

But that’s not the kind of service we need to strive for. God wants us to serve Him, but to serve with the right heart and the right character. Our walk and our service for the Lord must be marked by a holy behaviour and a righteous walk. We can’t serve God and live like the world – well, actually, we can do both in a sense. It will, however, be a work that makes us look good and in which the glory does not go to Him.

How many of us can honestly say that our lives are marked by holiness and righteousness, especially ‘all the days of our lives?’

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