1 Peter 1:13-16 Why gird up the loins of your mind, be sober… There is only one way of becoming holy as God is; and it is the obvious one of opening the entire being to the all-pervading presence of the Holy One. None of us can acquire holiness apart from God. It dwells in God alone. Holiness is only possible as the soul's possession of God; nay, better still, as God's possession of the soul. It never can be inherent, or possessed apart from the Divine fulness, any more than a river can flow on if it is cut off from its fountain head. We are holy up to the measure in which we are God possessed. The least holy man is he who shuts God up to the strictest confinement, and to the narrowest limits of his inner being; curtaining Him off from daily life by heavy curtains of neglect and unbelief. He is holier who more carefully denies self, and who seeks a larger measure of Divine indwelling. The holiest is the man who yields himself most completely to be influenced, swayed, possessed, inspired by that Spirit who longs to make us to the fullest extent partakers of the Divine nature. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; |
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