It is not necessary to teach us how to lose our health. Works on hygiene do not attempt to do that. A simple neglect of the laws of health will bring on disorder, disease and finally death. Many a person has lost his health without being able to tell how he lost it.
So the Bible does not teach us how to lose holiness. It gives us very explicit directions how to keep it. In each of these passages, there is something for us to do if we would keep holiness and get through to heaven.
We are told that we must “increase and abound in love one
toward another, and toward all men” (1 Thessalonians 3:12–13 KJV). What we had when we were converted, or when we were sanctified wholly is not sufficient. It is not enough that we grow in knowledge; there must be a marked increase in love. We must abound in it — not
merely toward those who love us, but toward “all men.”
The things to be done in order that we may “never fail” (2 Peter 1:10–11 KJV) are Christian graces to be added to the beginnings of graces received when we were converted and sanctified wholly.
Some lakes and inland seas are without outlets, but none are without inlets. Insensible evaporation would soon dry up the largest of them if its waters were not receiving a constant addition.
No matter how much grace a person received when converted and sanctified wholly, if he does not grow in grace, he will become dry and unfruitful, spiritually dead and insensible to his condition.
B.T. Roberts was a principal founder of the Free Methodist Church. This article is a condensed excerpt of Chapter 20 in “Holiness Teachings: The Life and Work of B.T. Roberts.”
Go to fmchr.ch/holyhealth to read Roberts’ full text via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.
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