The Struggle for Holiness

“Hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.” – 1 Thessalonians 5:23

Often at the heart of our grittiest struggles with temptation are the same lies. You’ll feel better if you do this. God is withholding something from you. You aren’t getting what you deserve. So go ahead.

C. S. Lewis writes in one of his letters: “I think one may be quite rid of the old haunting suspicion—which raises its head in every temptation—that there is something else than God—some other country… into which He forbids us to trespass—some kind of delight which He ‘doesn’t appreciate’ or just chooses to forbid, but which would be real delight if only we were allowed to get it. The thing just isn’t there. Whatever we desire is either what God is trying to give us as quickly as He can, or else a false picture of what He is trying to give us—a false picture which would not attract us for a moment if we saw the real thing.”

My own struggle for holiness, to not nurture temptation in any form, is a struggle to believe this truth: that there is no such thing as real goodness apart from God. There is truly no good thing which he withholds from me. That idea is a mirage, an illusion, which far from offering real happiness or freedom merely entraps or entangles me, spiraling down to a place of increasing self-pity, bitterness, anger, and addiction. 

It does no good to try to talk oneself out of these lies: the only way to begin to extract oneself, to begin to see the lie for what it is, is to fix on the truth. And the truth is not an idea: he is a Person. In the end, temptation is not a matter of self-control, but of relationship. Only love for Jesus, willingness to suffer for him, and trust in the love he has for me, can turn me from temptation. And the promise God offers is this: he himself will sanctify me completely. No matter my feelings, no matter my mess-ups. He who has called me is faithful. He will surely do it.