Venue Space D – Focus on the Beauty of Holiness

Prayer Strategies

Strategy #1

You have been assigned to pray for Space D in the venue.  This space has 30 seats.  This could well be one of the most challenging assignments of the nine teams working on the venue.

When I was growing up, beauty and holiness did not fit in the same sentence.  Holy was boring at best, and painful most of the time – if it was ever really achieved which was unlikely.

It was Elijah turning 100 soldiers into crispy critters because they were rude.

It was John the Baptist cussing out people who were repentant.  But not enough.

And worst of all it was my nemesis, Enoch, who was just plain nasty.  Jude 14ff  NIV  Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: "See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him."

And for walking in that level of toxic speech he got a pass on death because God really like him.  He was holy in a fantastically hostile sort of way.  Go figure.

Holiness was not my friend.  God and Dad (or at least Dad) used it as a club on me.

My friends were not holy.  My music was not holy.  My games were not holy.  My books were not holy.  My hair was not holy.  My clothes were not holy.  I was not holy.

Simple.

The one exception to ugly holiness was a wedding.  The bride was assumed ─ or hoped to be ─ holy in a sexual sense, and so she was entitled to wear a beautiful white dress.

And I was never going to be a bride, so that was the end of that discussion.

The times have changed.

I am not an eight-year-old rebellious knothead any more, with primitive theology.

I have created this pair of phrases.

Unholiness is violating God’s principles.

Holiness is implementing God’s principles.

And holiness is a spectrum, not an absolute point.

I am in love with the Biblical principles, especially the seven primary ones.  The sixth principle is Freedom and the fruit of that is flow.

I experience a large amount of flow in my life as a result of my deliberately walking in the Principle of Freedom.  And I have some good flow as a result of that.

For example, for decades, our packages from SLG have flowed through the postal service in a vastly quicker way than other people’s.

Recently I sent a package to a small post office that has been understaffed and over used for many years.  There is consistently a line at the counter there. CONSISTENTLY.  The day my box arrived and my friend went to pick it up, there was no line for a few minutes.

That simple.

The level of authority I have regarding flow, not only got the box there in three days, but controlled congestion in the post office exactly when my friend went.

To me, that is the beauty of holiness.

It was not a matter of sin vs. righteousness.  It was a matter of a principle being systematically implemented, and producing the anticipated fruit on a very measurable scale.

And it is not an absolute point that I – over all – am now holy.  Rather in one sector of principles, I have managed to move the ball considerably from where I was a few years ago.

To start this process of sanctifying the land and the building in Space D, with the beauty of holiness, spend some time looking at your life, making a list of where there has been absolutely verifiable fruit from your investing in building some principle in your life.

Savor those areas where there is more beauty now than there was five years ago.  And celebrate the hand of God on your life producing that change.

Strategy #2

You mined your life in the last few weeks for the beauty of holiness that comes from weaving together principles and seeing measurable, verifiable, sustained fruit on Monday morning.

Now let’s go to Scripture.  Attached to this email is a list of Biblical people.  It is not exhaustive.  You are welcome to use anyone in Scripture.  I just sent this along to jump start your process, if you wish.

This is one of my most used Bible study tools.  I have multiple copies printed at any given time so when an idea comes up, I can grab a fresh set and scroll through the names, looking for illustrations of that idea. 

Keep this because we will use it again.

I want you to look through the names and find someone whose fruit was the result of a process.

My favorite story is of Zadok, the invisible Servant High Priest who walked in integrity toward God and David for a lifetime, and was suddenly catapulted into the place of dedicating Solomon’s Temple and ushering in the visible glory of God in a massive manner.

I see a direct correlation between many choices he made and the majestic beauty of that holy moment.

Please study this list, find a process story where you can follow the trail from personal choices to epic authority that is elegant – Elijah killing 100 soldiers because their mama didn’t teach them enough manners, is not an elegant story.

Click here to download "Bible Women and Men" list as a PDF file.

Strategy #3

Cup half full; cup half empty.

Same cup.

The same is true of people.  We are all in process and the sections of our lives which have been redeemed and restored are beautiful, and the sections that are not yet redeemed, are otherwise.

Start with your life, and then look at others who you know.  Skip all the unholiness in their lives, and focus just on the areas that are becoming beautiful, under the hand of God.

Savor those things.

Then ask God to bring restoration to the area OF HIS CHOOSING for those sitting in Space D.

You see, all of us have a shopping list for God – the things we want Him to make beautiful in our lives.

Often, God’s sequence is different from ours.

Come into agreement with God’s sequence for each person sitting there, even though you do not know them or what God’s agenda is.

Call His agenda good, and ask Him to make beautiful in their lives everything He desires to do, in spite of the things on their list.

Copyright by Arthur Burk