You will cleanse no sin from your life that you have not first recognized as being pardoned through the cross. This is because holiness always starts in the heart. The essence of holiness is not new behavior, activity, or disciplines. Holiness is new affections, new desires, and new motives that then lead to new behavior. If you don’t see your sin as completely pardoned, then your affections, desires, and motives will be wrong. You will aim to prove yourself. Your focus will be the consequences of your sin rather than hating the sin itself and desiring God in its place. (28)
Be careful. You can easily take this sentence the wrong way: "The essence of holiness is not new behavior, activity, or disciplines." We all have heard plenty of times that God cares more about the heart than our external actions, and there is truth in it. However, we can read that sentence alone and then decide that what we really need is to work hard at our affections, desires, and motives. But we will go on being frustrated (and un-justified) if we do that apart from the cross.
Am I so grounded in the gospel that I am not worried about what other people think?
Am I so secure in what Christ has done for me that I do not obsess over how I look?
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