Man, in the deepest, most darkest corners of his will, is evil. This is the premise with which many philosophers and religious men and women wrestled throughout history. When everything was said and done, there was only two colors - black and white. This inescapable simplicity, this duality of right and wrong, this tremendously heavy burden of guilt within man - and the knowledge and sight of that which is bright and righteous in its truth - was it attainable? Is true goodness something that the evil man can achieve by the force of his will? Absolutely impossible. Man’s will in itself is evil and already corrupted. “How,” you ask, “is man evil?” Man is evil because he stands totally against the values of Him who is good. The standards of goodness measured in God, the Almighty One, is the standards by which our evil is measured. This is the first and the most important premise of the Gospel, is it not? And with that introduction, I’d like to propose a simple method of attaining grounds into the realms of holiness for the Christian. I am sure that many people, like myself, find it frustrating that holiness is not a natural result of church attendance. It does not matter how many books you read, nor does it matter whether you are friendly, nice, kind, and smiling. Holiness doesn't sprout out of the barren desert of man’s heart - regardless of the amount of rich soil laid upon it. A seed planted in a desert will die, without exceptions. It may, by chance, land on a moist part of the desert and grow slightly; however, it will die a fledgling because a desert is no place for a plant to thrive. The desert is the natural condition of man’s heart. Why is it barren and dry? It is because the misguided attempts of the philosophers of this world to analyze and and organize the chaos of man has left its imprints on society; it is because those ideologies and philosophies are a part of your understanding of the world. You were born with the capacity for it; you were fed it through school. You experienced in the conversations, interactions and transactions as you partook in the very world your ancestor Adam corrupted - for through Adam sin entered. The question, then, as a Christian who desires to fare in holiness and uprightness before the omniscient God, is this: How can we escape this complete lack of ability to succeed in our pursuit of holiness? The only way - and this is the conclusion - is to give up our notion of what the world is and replace them with what Christ teaches man as the truth in the Gospels, the Epistles, and the entire Word of God. If ‘biblical friendship’ is defined by submission and service while the worldly friendship is just people who enjoy each other’s company, then the two ideologies cannot co-exist. One must be left aside for the other. That is what the Apostle John meant when he said, “Do not love the world, nor the things of this world. But if you love the world and the things of this world, you are not of the Father.” A true Christian leaves behind the world - the things, the people, the ideals, the dreams, the philosophies - for the sake of gaining Christ. You wouldn’t think twice to leave a shack in the middle of nowhere for a mansion in Beverly Hills if the offer was on the table - the only requirement of the offer would be that you now have to dress and act like you being in Beverly Hills - this is a small price to pay for an offer like this. Likewise, we must leave behind the trash that is this world, renew our minds, and live, here and now, as heavenly Citizens.
