Read Free to Live: The Utter Relief of Holiness for Free Online

the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:13–20)
    Well, now—that’s pretty straightforward. And unnerving. The Master of all Goodness is making a few things absolutely clear in his famous lecture from the mountainside. First off, that goodness matters . Immensely. Far more than you think it does. In fact, he goes on to connect your personal holiness with your entrance into the kingdom of heaven. Uh-oh.
    Now, I know my fellow evangelicals will rush to protest that it is the cross of Jesus Christ alone that opens the way to heaven for any person. No amount of personal righteousness could ever suffice. I believe this. It is grace alone—the unmerited and undeserved forgiveness of God—that opens the way for any of us to know God, let alone come into his kingdom. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9). Thank God for that.
    However, you also find in Jesus and throughout the scriptures a pretty serious call to a holy life.
    Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:14)

For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. (1 Thessalonians 4:7)

As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:14–16)
    In fact, one of the most stunning things about Jesus is how such a gracious, kind, patient, and forgiving man holds—without so much as wavering—such a high standard of holiness. On the one hand, we have the beautiful story of a woman caught in the act of adultery—and how horrifying and humiliating would that be? The mob drags her before Jesus, ready to stone her (they actually did this sort of thing, and not that long ago; it still happens in some Muslim countries today). Jesus disarms the violence in a most cunning way:
    The religion scholars and Pharisees led in a woman who had been caught in an act of adultery. They stood her in plain sight of everyone and said, “Teacher, this woman was caught red-handed in the act of adultery. Moses, in the Law, gives orders to stone such persons. What do you say?” They were trying to trap him into saying something incriminating so they could bring charges against him. They kept at him, badgering him. He straightened up and said, “The sinless one among you, go first: Throw the stone.” Bending down again, he wrote some more in the dirt. Hearing that, they walked away, one after another, beginning with the oldest. The woman was left alone. Jesus stood up and spoke to her. “Woman, where are they? Does no one condemn you?” “No one, Master.” “Neither do I,” said Jesus. (John 8:3–10 TM )
    It is brilliant, and poignant. The town square is now deserted; only the woman and Jesus remain. She is probably wrapped in nothing but a bed sheet and her shame. He rescues her from a terrible death, and then forgives her. It feels as if the scene could not be more powerfully reported. What more could be said? But wait, Jesus has one last word for her:
    “Go on your way. From now on, don’t sin.”
    Yes, grace reigns in the Kingdom of God. But right there alongside it is an unflinching call to holiness. Go and sin no more. You see something equally startling (and much less anticipated) at the end of a story I recounted earlier, where Jesus healed the man on the Sabbath and told him to take up his mat. The rest of the story reads like this:
    The man was healed on the spot. He picked up his bedroll and walked off. The Jews stopped the healed man and said, “It’s the Sabbath. You can’t carry your bedroll around. It’s against the rules.” But he told them, “The man who made me well told me to. He said, ‘Take your bedroll