"The first national camp meeting, which developed into the National Holiness Association, was held in 1867. The revival led to the establishment of several new holiness denominations and to
the renewing and redirecting of others. This spiritual revival, promoted vigorously by a corps of itinerant evangelists, soon established holiness as the major tenet of the Wesleyan Methodist Connection, which had formerly majored on social and political reform."
You are probably wondering what's wrong with this statement. Well if you didn't catch it the quote states that the Wesleyan church after a revival moved it's focus from Social Justices and Political Reform to Holiness Evangelism.
The problem that I have with this might be pretty straight forward if you know me, but why in the world would we or how could we change our focus from social injustices and political reform to Holiness Evangelism. Now I am not saying that Holiness is a bad thing or something to be shoved off to the side. I plainly believe that when this happened the point of Scripture was missed and became incomplete in our Wesleyan minds. John Wesley himself said Holiness is, "Love excluding sin...Love filling up the heart and taking up the whole capacity of the soul...For as long as love takes up the whole heart, what room is there for sin therein." Not only did Wesley describe Holiness as this, but in Scripture we see Jesus describe the two greatest commandments as this, "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the other commandments and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments."
Did you catch that? Not only is Holiness loving God with all that we are, but "equally important" is our love for our neighbor. Realize that in this world we were put here to be an advocate for God and not only that a believer above reproach, but we were not put here to only concentrate on our Holiness or our time of devotions. Our life as believers is meant to be lived out in this world and in front of people to be an example of the love of Christ, not a picture of a Holier than Thou God that strikes those that aren't Holy.
Maybe I am too critical about the words that I read but I truly believe that while Holiness is important, I believe that we concentrate on it too much and have missed the point of Jesus putting us where we are in this world to speak love in to the lives of those that we come in contact with everyday. Maybe I need a vacation.
the renewing and redirecting of others. This spiritual revival, promoted vigorously by a corps of itinerant evangelists, soon established holiness as the major tenet of the Wesleyan Methodist Connection, which had formerly majored on social and political reform."
You are probably wondering what's wrong with this statement. Well if you didn't catch it the quote states that the Wesleyan church after a revival moved it's focus from Social Justices and Political Reform to Holiness Evangelism.
The problem that I have with this might be pretty straight forward if you know me, but why in the world would we or how could we change our focus from social injustices and political reform to Holiness Evangelism. Now I am not saying that Holiness is a bad thing or something to be shoved off to the side. I plainly believe that when this happened the point of Scripture was missed and became incomplete in our Wesleyan minds. John Wesley himself said Holiness is, "Love excluding sin...Love filling up the heart and taking up the whole capacity of the soul...For as long as love takes up the whole heart, what room is there for sin therein." Not only did Wesley describe Holiness as this, but in Scripture we see Jesus describe the two greatest commandments as this, "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the other commandments and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments."
Did you catch that? Not only is Holiness loving God with all that we are, but "equally important" is our love for our neighbor. Realize that in this world we were put here to be an advocate for God and not only that a believer above reproach, but we were not put here to only concentrate on our Holiness or our time of devotions. Our life as believers is meant to be lived out in this world and in front of people to be an example of the love of Christ, not a picture of a Holier than Thou God that strikes those that aren't Holy.
Maybe I am too critical about the words that I read but I truly believe that while Holiness is important, I believe that we concentrate on it too much and have missed the point of Jesus putting us where we are in this world to speak love in to the lives of those that we come in contact with everyday. Maybe I need a vacation.
