What if holiness was contagious?
MAJOR ANITA CALDWELL*
One cough and we hope people do not think we are contagious. We stay home from work and take our temperature to be sure we are not contagious. Over the past two years, being contagious is a very real threat in the world.
What if holiness was contagious? What if others chose to walk with us in our day-to-day lives hoping to ‘catch’ holiness?
Holiness was my father’s passion. He seldom preached a sermon without preaching on holiness. To him, holiness was about listening and obeying the voice of the Holy Spirit in his day-to-day life. Holy living for him was daily surrender and seeking out others who needed his Saviour. He loved to laugh with family, but he would also cry with the brokenhearted. Few people would know that his one goal was winning them to Jesus and discipling them in their faith.
Our garden was another great passion for my father. Every year, Dad carefully planted gardens for the best results, harvesting the most delicious veggies. Each day, we watered, fertilised and pulled weeds. Every year, he continued to expand and enrich the soil. He would spend hours moving precious rich dirt from a nearby creek to enrich the soil. The harvest was always amazing. Why? The fresh vegetables were just one of his tools for loving people to Jesus. He would watch for the slightest opportunity to invite people to our home, and, of course, while they always left with fresh vegetables, they could not leave without a conversation that would lead to Jesus and closed with prayer.
Look to Jesus
Peek with me over the shoulder of Jesus, the fitting example as he showed us how to disciple others.
First, he walked with people. He had no office, no building, no expectation that people would come to him. He built a relationship with them. Holy discipleship is built on holy relationships.
He ate with people, and people enjoyed being with him. His first miracle was at a wedding. Watch him as he eats with the tax collectors. As they enjoyed life together, people wanted to follow him and learn from him.
Remember those moments when he prayed with people. He exemplified love, joy, peace and goodness, and therefore, people sought him. They longed to know him.
Watch as he sits at the well of Samaria and invites a woman to Living Water. He did what no one would do in his day. People with leprosy felt his touch when no one would touch them. Smell the fish cooking by the sea as he prepared breakfast for his disciples.
Holiness and discipleship go hand in hand. Bill Ury says, “Holiness is nothing less than self-giving love. More than conceptual, this love is tangibly self-offering, self-dispensing, and self-emptying. It is the essence of biblical discipleship.”
Not only will holy living drive us to disciple others, but we will value each person God brings across our path, and he will give us the tools to disciple them. The Holy Spirit gives us the desire to lead people to Christ.
We can try in our own strength, but we will always be too busy, too afraid.
People in our world today hunger for relationships that engage, and they are even more hungry for those relationships that are filled with joy, laughter, and positivity. These characteristics are birthed in our hearts through surrender and holy living. When we give our lives totally to God and trust him with each day, people want to be discipled by us for Christlikeness because they see Christ in us!
Steps to discipling
Know you are forgiven and have turned away from sin: “go and sin no more” (John 8:11).
Ask the Holy Spirit to sanctify you and set you apart for his glory and service.
Seek him and grow in his grace every day through prayer and reading of God’s Word.
Pray that God will lead you to someone who either does not believe in Jesus or is new in faith.
Spend time building a relationship! Eat with them, have coffee with them, listen to their story.
Let the Holy Spirit guide you and speak to you as you lead that person to see and know Jesus.
Don’t rush the process! Remember the worth of fresh veggies and cookies!
Share God’s Word together, pray together – be contagious by living out holiness with pure love!
My father first had a deep love for the Holy Spirit and surrendered his life to God. With that surrender, he wanted nothing more than to lead someone to Christ and disciple them to know God as he knew God. Love for gardening was a blessing, which became his tool to engage and build relationships with others.
Read Anita’s article: Holiness a piece of cake!?
Contagious holiness will lead us to enjoy discipling others to Christ.
The Salvation Army co-founder, General William Booth, said, “We are a salvation people – this is our specialty – getting saved and keeping saved, and then getting somebody else saved, and then getting saved ourselves more and more until full salvation on earth makes the heaven within, which is finally perfected by the full salvation without, on the other side of the river.”
With the joy of the Holy Spirit, now let us go and disciple others! Let holiness be contagious through us!
*Major Anita Caldwell is a retired Salvation Army officer from the USA Southern Territory. Throughout her officership, Anita has served in corps, RHQs, THQs and teaching appointments, including several years in the Eastern Europe Territory in leadership and principal roles. She was also an area commander, senior Kroc officer and Director of Curriculum at The Salvation Army Evangeline Booth College. Anita is the author of Holiness Alive, Holiness and the Hymns: Daily Devotions for Holy Living, and the children’s book Sarah the Cat . . . and Jesus: Teaching Your Children and Grandchildren to Listen to the Voice of The Holy Spirit. Anita has also been a guest writer for The Salvation Army devotional Words of Life.
