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“Love God?  Sometimes I hate Him.” Strange words to come from the mouth of a Christian saint as respected as Martin Luther. But that's exactly how Luther felt when he thought about God. Especially when he thought about God's holiness, and His requirement that His children be holy. Passages like “you shall be holy for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16) were no comfort for a young monk named Luther.

Nevertheless, Luther pursued holiness all the same. He later wrote, “I was a good monk, and I kept the rule of my order so strictly that I may say that if ever a monk got to heaven by his monkery it was I. If I had kept on any longer, I should have killed myself with vigils, prayers, reading, and other work.”

But despite his best efforts at holiness, the distraught monk found his soul just as troubled. He later wrote, “Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. I could not believe that he was placated by my satisfaction. I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners, and secretly, if not blasphemously, certainly murmuring greatly, I was angry with God, and said, “As if, indeed, it is not enough, that miserable sinners, eternally lost through original sin, are crushed by every kind of calamity by the law of the Decalogue, without having God add pain to pain by the gospel and also by the gospel threatening us with his righteousness and wrath!” Thus I raged with a fierce and troubled conscience."

What was Luther's problem? He saw holiness as something we work for instead of something we work from. But His life was completely changed when he understood the Gospel.

God is holy. That was a truth Luther understood well.

Man is by nature not holy. Luther knew that too.

Christ was perfectly holy, and died as if He was not. Christ rose from the dead and invites sinners to believe in Him. All who put their faith in Christ are declared holy and righteous because of the righteousness of Christ in our place. In understanding this, Luther became reborn. His hatred for a holy God turned into love for an adoptive heavenly Father. He understood that believers were adopted into God's family, and become children of a loving Father.

Once he understood this Gospel, Luther was able to pursue holiness. He understood that God was his Father who loved him. He realized that God wasn't being a cosmic killjoy when His Word prohibited sin, He realized God was protecting His children from the stupidity of sin. He realized that this holiness was necessary, but thanks be to God it was possible because his heavenly Father had given him everything he needed.

Christian: are you pursuing holiness? What would it look like for you to begin today?