Pursue Holiness: Staying on the Path

Paths wind their way around mountains, criss-cross over streams, and meander through fields. Sometimes a path is level and safe, requiring nothing more from us than intentional forward movement, while others demand planning and preparation, proper equipment, and people to guide us. 

Most simply, paths are the means for reaching a destination, but sometimes they seem to lead us further into the wilderness or to a fork in the road where we must choose which way to go – yet again.

So it seems significant that the writer of Hebrews chooses to pull in the metaphor of ‘staying on the paths of God’ in order to help us know how to pursue holiness (12:13). And he gets it straight out of Proverbs:

“Make level the path for your feet, and all your ways shall be established.”

Proverbs 4:26 BLB

In the original language, ‘the path’ is used figuratively to refer to the moral and spiritual choices that shape our lives.¹ Paired with the Hebrew for ‘make level’, our call is to stay on God’s path by “pre-measuring [our] decisions and smoothing out hazards before they trip [us] up.”² Or, simply, “give careful thought to the paths for your feet” (Proverbs 4:26 NIV). 

In our pursuit of holiness, we’ve been shown we have a path to stay on – God’s path, the one that’s for our good and and for His purposes. It’s the path God will keep shining His light on (Psalm 119:105), the one He marks out for us and teaches us to recognize (Psalm 25:4). And though we’re told that God makes our paths ‘straight’, it’s not a promise for prosperity or an easy life (Proverbs 3:6). Rather, it’s a principle to live by each time we choose to ‘submit all our ways to Him’. Because when we’re open to His leading, He helps us navigate the path we’re on. 

As with any trail or road, even the good path we’re on with God will never be free of sharp turns or potholes – all the life-changes and temptations. But by heeding the principle from Proverbs, thinking through our choices and smoothing out what lies ahead with faith, we will stay on the path of holiness. 

Signs We’re Off the Path

It’s bound to happen. We’re human. Fallible. Stubborn. Broken. There will be times when we veer off the path of holiness, whether that be by our own volition, our complacency, or our reactions to the world around us. 

My most recent off-road season began the moment we got news of our move to Georgia. As if on autopilot I leapt into action cleaning out closets and calling realtors. I knew how to do this, afterall. My husband and I just fed off of each other, creating punch lists and marking them off two at a time. We flew to Atlanta and put an offer on a house. We had this.

Now, please understand. I hadn’t abandoned my faith. I remained in the Word and talked with God. I knew He had led us well in every prior move, and on a level that had served me well in the past, I trusted He would show us the way again. But when weeks turned into months of waiting for a buyer to make an offer on our house, that ‘level’ was no longer deep enough. We lost the house in Atlanta, and I wobbled. A constant low-level thrum of anxiety kept me jumpy and guarded all at the same time. As the holidays rolled around, I had moments of panic that we might still be waiting in a year.  

Recognizing my own spiral, I began reaching out to my praying friends in earnest. I pulled my journal out – along with the coats and sweaters I had packed back in the summer. 

Today, I can see the way I had allowed myself to be led by my ‘old self’, the self that over-plans when stressed, the self that grasps for control. But as I began releasing the reins, I could sense God asking me to lay aside my old self and fully put my trust in Him (Ephesians 4:22). He even gave me prophetic words from friends, which encouraged me and boosted my ability to see Him in the details. So when one friend told me, “God has a particular house for you; it’s just not ready yet,” I was able to receive it – as well as the new perspective such words gave me. 

As I released control and sought the Lord, I became better aware of Holy Spirit’s presence, and little by little my heart rate slowed. Every single day, I chose to let go of outcomes and trust God’s hand to lead us on the path He had for us.*

I can see, looking back, that God was taking me, spiritually speaking, down a path that led toward deeper levels of faith. A path that only had light enough for the next step – with God asking me to trust Him for what I could not see. 

Friends, it’s so important that we pay attention to our bodies and the state of our minds and emotions. They tell us so much about what’s happening in us spiritually, often becoming indicators of the paths we’re on.

When we make time to take our own pulse and shift our focus to Jesus, we are more likely to listen when someone points out we’re veering off the trail – or have left it completely. We can change our steps. We repent and ask for forgiveness. We turn back to God and find that His grace is so good that it wipes our slate clean and points us back to the path of holiness. 

That said, the longer we’re off God’s path, the further we go down the ‘well-traveled road’ – the one that leads to a lifestyle of sin. Paul actually offers a list of what it looks like when we cease being “directed by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:18) – because he wants us to be able to recognize the symptoms of sin-sickness that come from charting our own paths:

“It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.”

Galatians 5:19-21 MSG

Paul never minces words, yet we must read this list through the right lenses of context and purpose. Paul is not condemning believers; rather, he is giving us some specific sin-symptoms to watch for. This list of behaviors and consequences reveal underlying brokenness and unholy motivations. Paul’s list becomes, then, a useful reference in helping us recognize when we’ve gotten off God’s path.

Hopefully, it’s becoming more obvious that staying on the path of holiness doesn’t happen by chance. In fact, very often the choices that lead us off the ‘narrow road’ are small and seemingly innocuous (Matthew 7:13-14). If left unheeded, those choices cause a slow drift off God’s path and eventually lead to bigger choices with much greater consequences, leaving us to wonder, “How did I get here?”

God stands aware of all of this. He created us and knows how “all of us, like sheep,” can easily stray away, how with little effort we can leave His “paths to follow our own” (Isaiah 53:6 NLT). And that’s why He, with such kindness, continuously extends His grace to us, calling us to stay on His path of holiness.

Walking with Christ’s Mind

In her study, Encounter the Spirit, Carolyn Moore poses a most impactful question, “What if the answer to our brokenness is God’s holiness?”³ 

She knows the answer. She just wants us to ponder the possibility.

The truth is we are all broken. Each time we enter a room or a relationship, we carry with us wounds and scars, incomplete understanding, fears, assumptions, and learned reactions. Some wounds are deeper and unhealed, perhaps even unidentified. While other wounds have begun healing, there are those that are fresh and still gaping. To say it another way, we’re all broken but to varying degrees and depths.

Yet no matter what wounds we walk through life with, the same hope applies. The answer to all brokenness is God’s holiness.

In the Book of John, Jesus heals a man who had been lame for nearly four decades (see John 5). And we cheer for Jesus’ compassion and power! Yet John, the one capturing these stories for our benefit, wants us to be clear that the truer brokenness of this once-lame-man was more than malfunctioning bones and muscles; it was sin (v.14). Pastor and Bible teacher, John Piper, paraphrases Jesus’ challenge to the walking-miracle of a man, “Let the gift of healing, the gift of my free grace, be a means to your holiness.” ⁴ When Jesus spoke these words of spiritual wholeness, it was as if He were saying, “I have healed you that you may be holy.”⁴ In other words, Jesus heals in more ways than one. But it’s in His holiness that our brokenness is made whole. And holy.

Once we encounter Christ, Holy Spirit dwells in us, empowering and equipping us to live whole and holy. And one way He does that is by giving us what Paul calls “the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16), that “ability to imagine what God sees.”³ With the mind of Christ, Holy Spirit shapes our character, develops our wisdom, and helps us think of God more than ourselves.³ He helps us be more self-aware and attuned to what God is trying to tell us.

With the mind of Christ, we can see with new perspectives and receive the work of the Spirit, the One in the business of renewing our thoughts and attitudes (Ephesians 4:23 NLT). And all of this makes us ready to throw off our old, sinful nature and put on our new nature – because we were “created to be like God—truly righteous and holy” (vv.22,24). Holiness for brokenness.

But even in this we have a choice – to stay on the path or choose our own. 

Friends, this ‘life in the Spirit’ is a path to be walked out and worked through. And at every turn, we face the decision to hold such a life as a mere “idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts” or to pursue holiness earnestly by working out its “implications in every detail of our lives” (Galatians 5:25 MSG). Staying on the path of holiness happens as we keep in step with the Spirit, walk this life with the mind of Christ, and put our whole trust in our good Father. 

Let’s pray:

Holy Spirit, the more we get to know You, the more we realize just how much we need You. Thank You for your constant presence and for the way You highlight passages of Scripture that teach us the Father’s ways, give us His wisdom, and reveal your conviction. We deeply desire ‘a life in the Spirit’ because we know it is the absolute best life here on earth, because we know it is the only way to make level the paths of our feet. With You as our Helper and Guide, we can walk this life with the mind of Christ and better know God’s voice and will. We can better discern which steps to take, more readily throw off our old patterns of sin, and put on the new nature Christ has provided. We ask that You would search our hearts and souls, revealing wounds that need healing and broken places that can be made whole. We know that with You dwelling in us, we have all we need to live whole and holy – and to stay on the path of holiness. Speak, we are listening. Lead, we are following. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray, amen. 
(inspired by John 14:16-17,26; Galatians 5:25; Proverbs 4:26; 1 Corinthians 2:16; Ephesians 4:22-24; Psalm 139:23–24)

Resources: I love sharing with you the books, podcasts, articles, and anything else that has inspired, encouraged, or taught me. These are humble offerings with no expectations.

• *The rest of the story: On a day that I least expected to hear news of an offer on our house, it came. The details fell into place so easily, so beautifully, there was no denying God’s hand in it all. Within forty-eight hours of accepting the offer on our house, we signed one on a house in a city we had not visited till the day of the open house – a house that had only come on the market days before we got the call we had waited months to get.
• 1 – Biblehub for the word for ‘path’, magal
• 2 – Biblehub for the word for ‘make straight’, palas
• 3 – Carolyn Moore in her book, Encounter the Spirit
• 4 – John Piper’s article, “Healed for the Sake of Holiness,” is well thought out, supported, and delivered. So good.
• You’ll find that Brooke Ligertwood’s famous (modern) hymn, “Lead Me to the Cross,” on our new Spotify playlist, Pursue Holiness, captures the heart of the gospel and this post — Jesus leads us. His blood makes a way for us to live holy lives; His resurrection gives us a way to ‘rid us of ourselves’ and become more like Him. Oh the deep blessing of it all….
• My monthly newsletter, The Abiding Life, goes to email inboxes the first week of each month to those who have subscribed on my website. I also post them on Substack. My most recent edition can be found there, and you can subscribe for future newsletters on Substack, here.
• Many of you have found me on Substack. Thank you so much! And, if you’d like to listen to (rather than read) these weekly posts, you can do so on Substack. It’s easy to see and use the audio bar across the top of each post. While you’re on Substack, check out the ministry I’m blessed to be part of, the Devoted Collective.

Rhythms: As my newsletter’s title infers, we seek to develop an abiding life in this space — a place where we can get informed but also be transformed as we learn to abide in God’s presence throughout our days. I like to think that developing rhythms is one way to aid us in our desire to become more Christlike.

• As we progress in this fall series, we’ll be talking more and more about the rhythms we can engage in as the ‘means of grace’. Such rhythms are not tools to earn grace or holiness; rather, they’re active disciplines we enter into with Holy Spirit; they’re ways or places we can be transformed by God’s holiness.. Very simply, the ‘means of grace’ are outward practices we employ in order to be more fully shaped by God’s life; in other words, they are the ‘means’ to being and living holy.
  
  A third ‘means of grace’ practice that strengthens and matures us a Christ followers and helps us stay on the path of holiness is connecting in deep and vulnerable ways with a few trusted believers. If this element is missing from our lives, we’ll flounder more than flourish because we’ll lack accountability, encouragement, prayers, and the discernment of other believers. I pray that each of us will be more intentional to seek out and remain engaged with such groups — whether we meet regularly or find ways to connect digitally. If you need help with how to form or shape such a group, check out Seedbed’s Discipleship Bands website.

• We’re all called to share the truth about who Jesus is. One way you can do that is by sharing this site and telling others your own stories of faith experiences. May we use our whole selves to tell others about our holy God!!

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“All the Bits and Pieces” Photo by Victoria Soldaska on Unsplash.
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