May 20, 2026 -- II Corinthians 7:1 -- Bringing holiness to completion

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Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.
II Corinthians 7:1 ESV
 
That word fear can mean being afraid of, but Paul’s use of it is like the fear of a man, who loves his wife and therefore has decided he will not look at another woman lustfully for fear of insulting his own wife or compromising their relationship. It is a healthy fear that sets boundary lines which preserve the good and keeps out defilement and sin.
 
In Chapter 6 Paul has spelled out the promises of God—we are God’s temple, He is our God and we are His people; He is our dear heavenly Father. Knowing these promises are for you and for me, we fear to touch, look at, engage in anything that violates or makes dirty, our relationship with God.
 
In Paul’s day there was an expression, “to corinthianize”. It meant to take someone who is innocent and debauch them, make them as dirty as the sexualized culture around them. Ouch. You can see that is precisely what is happening in our culture today. Secular schools emphasize sex education, even at the earliest grades, while skills such as math and reading and art and physical education are pushed aside.
 
As Christians, delighted in the glorious blessings of God, we avert our eyes from the defilements of our culture. We debrief ourselves from the stains of daily life in a world that is filthy with sin. We do so by confessing our sins. We do so by holding ourselves accountable to fellow believers, who have the right to ask us if we are too entangled in any aspect of the culture, rather than being fully integrated into our Christian faith and pure unto Jesus.
 
What an expression! Bringing holiness to completion; we do not merely make a start at serving God and ridding ourselves of sin, we go all in for Jesus. Heart, mind, soul, and hands are committed to refraining from evil to serve Jesus and this to the glory of God. Why? Because God loved us first. Because God has given us all things necessary for salvation. A little holiness is delightful, the more of it the Spirit brings to us, the more we are filled with the Spirit and with the blessed joy of this new life and we hunger and thirst for more.
 
Father in heaven, teach me, all over again, teach me the joy of a life dedicated to Your holy service. By the presence of Your Spirit stir up in me a zeal to hate sin more and being cleansed of it, to have greater capacity to bring holiness to completion. Amen.
 
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