Call to Holiness

God calls us to holiness. Keep in mind that he does not call us to live blindly; Jesus is the light to our world and guides us on our path to communion with God.

Our conformity to Christ involves a radical love that requires a gift of self. “If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). By incorporating us into Christ, the Holy Spirit also makes us members of his body, the Church. Jesus sends us into the world to spread the Good News. Christ himself was sent out to preach to the world, and was persecuted for his message. We too are to follow in his footsteps, and we too will be misunderstood. Jesus himself said, "If the world hateth you, ye know that it hath hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love its own: but because ye are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, A servant is not greater than his lord. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no excuse for their sin."

What does it mean to be a "Child of God"? It means that we must follow and answer his call to walk with him and help to teach others about him so that they too may grow in communion in themselves. We comprise the Body of Christ, and it is from god that we receive our mission and call to holiness. “But now in Christ Jesus ye that once were far off are made nigh in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who made both one, and brake down the middle wall of partition, having abolished in the flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; that he might create in himself of the two one new man, so making peace; and might reconcile them both in one body unto God through the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: and he came and preached peace to you that were far off, and peace to them that were nigh: for through him we both have our access in one Spirit unto the Father. So then ye are no more strangers and sojourners, but ye are fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief corner stone; in whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.