You love righteousness and hate wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of joy. —Psalm 45:7
What words do you associate with holiness? Would gladness be one? Or does holiness give you that feeling of being joyless, uptight, and rigid?
The world tells us that the greatest thrills are found in indulging impurity and disdaining righteousness. But to love what is pure and to have a deep heart aversion to sin is to move toward joy. To resist holiness, on the other hand, or to pursue it halfheartedly, is to forfeit true joy and settle for something far less than the God-intoxication for which we were created.
Sooner or later, sin will strip and rob you of everything that’s truly beautiful and desirable. But if you’re a child of God, you were redeemed to enjoy the sweet fruit of holiness—to walk in oneness with your heavenly Father, to relish His presence, to rejoice in His mercy, to experience the freedom of having clean hands, a pure heart, and a clear conscience—the promise of one day standing before Him unashamed.
Why settle for anything less glad?
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The Quiet Place: Daily Devotional Readings
©2012 Nancy Leigh DeMoss
Scripture taken from The CSB
Make it Personal
Take time to contemplate the pleasures and joys to be found in loving what God loves and hating what He hates.