DRIFTING
FROM HOLINESS

Topics: Compromise; Holiness; Self-control; Spiritual Disciplines; Tolerance

Reference: 1 Thessalonians 5:1–10

People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.

—D. A. Carson, For the Love of God (Crossway, 1999)