Priscilla Shirer – Holiness Matters

“Stand firm … having put on the breastplate of righteousness”. – Ephesians 6:14

“A prayer that’s seeking passion should not be about manufacturing a better feeling or jostling up a better mood. It’s simply about holding out your open hands—in thanksgiving first, in gratitude for God’s faithfulness and His goodness and His assured, accomplished victory over the enemy. Then asking. Asking for what He already wants to give you. Then waiting (expecting) to receive the promise of newness and freshness from His Spirit as you go along, more each day—praying until, as the prophet Hosea said . . . He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain watering the earth. (Hos. 6:3)”
― Priscilla Shirer

Old school holiness, y’all, you’re gonna have to make a decision to live right to choose to live holy because you can be in your war room praying until you’re blue in the face.
But if you come out of that prayer closet and you live in a raggedy wayward lifestyle, that is out of alignment with the truth of God, then your prayers will have been wasted.
You got to be holy. If I were your enemy, more than anything else, I would want you going into battle without a breastplate because if a Roman soldier had brawn and had muscle, if a Roman soldier had previous victories, so he had great experience in battle.
If the Roman soldier had great knowledge and, and knew the formations for the battle array, but she went into battle with all of that stuff.
But without a breastplate, one shot to the heart would take him out.
So if I were your enemy, I would constantly be dangling the right carrots to try to get you to live without a breastplate on.
If I were your enemy, I would be dangling the carrot, not the one that would bother her or bother him.
It ain’t a carrot. I would dangle the one that I have studied and I have seen. True.
That will allure you away from walking in holiness. Have you ever noticed that?
That carrot is always dangled when you are most vulnerable when you’re most lonely, when you feel most isolated, when you’re most hungry, when you’re most frustrated when you’re most in a season of longing y’all.
That’s because it’s not coincidence. It’s a scheme.
The enemy wants us bound, living in every kind of wayward lifestyle and habit.
He wants us addicted. He wants us walking in sin and walking in rebellion.
He don’t mind if you’re a churchgoer. He don’t mind if you’re a song singer.
He doesn’t mind if you’re a hand waver. He doesn’t mind if you come to the conference once a here.
What he doesn’t want is you walking in Holiness on Monday and on a regular Tuesday and in your decision making on Wednesday and then on Thursday and Friday and Saturday, he don’t want you choosing holiness because holiness means you have blocked him out from a full frontal attack on your life.
Oh, I’m telling you to be holy.
I’m telling you to lay aside every weight and every sin which so easily entangles you.
There’s a race to be run. You’re running a race. We have a finish line to cross.
Aren’t you tired of carrying all that baggage?