Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. 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.”I almost laughed, then stopped myself. The commands of God are not to be taken lightly. We prayed about this little trip we are taking, and God has His purposes in permitting it. We may not know what lies in store, but we cannot put our accountability to Him on hold. Nor can we think that our enemy will pull back and let us take a vacation without throwing something at us to entice us away from the Lord.
For one thing, he is already pushing that sense of the forbidden cookie jar, which I now see as a temptation to drop back into my old way of thinking. I used to make short holidays like this all about satisfying me, but this one is not to be like that.
Instead, I must prepare my mind to do what God wants every day, even while on a holiday. I am to be self-controlled, not running around doing my own thing. I am also to remember the grace of God that has brought me this far in my life. I need to listen to the Lord no matter what I am doing. I can escape the daily pressures of home and work on a short retreat, but life itself is short. One day I will meet Jesus and I don’t want to have egg on my face when that happens.
Holiness means “set apart” and being holy signifies that I belong to God. Simply put, this passage says that I am to act like it, not just in church, not just in my daily routine, but also in this venture. Instead of obliviously doing my own thing without concern for Him, this is one more opportunity to seek the face of God and find out what He is up to in a new setting and in a different place than I have been before.
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