Don't Be a Don'ter!

"It isn't enough to be good.  Be good for something.  The essence of Christianity is not a passionless purity.  Don't be a don'ter.  Be a doer."  Bill Piper

For many Christians holiness is about all the things they don't do, or more likely, all the things they wish they could stop doing.  "I would be more like Christ if I could only stop..."  This tends to spill over into how we relate to other believers, in that we exclude and include based on what other people don't do.

Back in Ephesians 4:22-24 we drilled down on the pattern of "take off, renew, put on".  Take off your old self, be made new in your attitude, put on your new self.  (Four sermons here.)  Unfortunately, we tend to get stuck in "take off" when it comes to holiness, as if we would be well dressed if we just took off our dirty clothes.  Sometimes I just wish my kids would "be good", but what I'm really thinking is "stop it"!

Yes, take off/stop/quit when, where and what God commands.  But be renewed in your thinking.  Be transformed in your desires.  And put on/start/go when, where and what God commands.  It's change  from the inside out.  Aim for passionate doing instead of passionless don'ting.