The Chase (Part 1)
Just finished reading The Chase with my seventh graders. It was a really good refresher from reading Pursuit of Holiness back in the fall/winter. Thought I would give some good quotes that stuck out to me from each chapter.

Introduction
The illustration of the farmer: Farmers work hard without knowing how things will turn out. A farmer plows his field, plants seeds, fertilizes, and gets rid of weeds that can kill healthy crops, but in the end he completely depends on forces out side of himself. He knows he can't cause the seed to start growing. He can't make it rain. He can't force the sun to shine at just the right times for growing and harvesting the crop. To be a successful farmer and businessman, he totally depends on God for all these things to take place. Yet, if the farmer doesn't do everything he needs to do he cant expect a harvest at the end of the season. Farming is a joint venture between God and the farmer. The farmer can't do what God must do, and God won't do what the farmer is responsible for. Chasing after holiness is like that. Holiness is something that we need God to do, yet on the flip side we need to do some work ourselves. If God isn't present, true holiness cant be present. Yet if we reliy soley on God and don't put any effort into it ourselves, holiness isn't possible either.

Chapter 1 - Holiness is for You
-Will you start looking as sin as an offense against God instead of just a personal defeat?
-Will you start taking personal responsibility for your sin, realizing that as you do, you must depend on the grace of God?
-Will you start obeying God in all areas of life, however insignificant an issue may be?

Chapter 2 - Holiness of God
Sometimes we have to accept by faith the fact that God is holy, even when difficult circumstances make it seem otherwise. Complaining against God is like denying that he's holy or saying that he's not fair. In the seventeenth century, Stephen Charnock said, 'It is less injury to Him to deny His being, than to deny the purity of it; the one makes Him no God, the other a deformed, unlovely, and detestible God... He that saith God is not holy speaks much worse than he that said there is no God at all.'

Chapter 3 - Holiness Isn't an Option
The Bible talks about two types of holiness. The first one we have b/c of Christ intervening for us before God. The second one is a holiness we're to strive after. Questions to ask yourself:
-Is there evidence of practical hoiness in my everyday life?
-Do I desire and chase after holiness?
-Am I grieved by my sin?
-Am I seeking God's help to become holy?

Chapter 4- Holiness of Christ
As we consider our own holiness, or maybe our lack of holiness, we begin to feel defeated and broken compared with where we know we should be. Don't sweat it, this is a good thing. We need to feel this way, b/c it will push us into Christ's arms....
As you chase after holiness, you should find yourself running to Jesus. You run to him, not because you need to accept him as Savior again, but because he'll lavish his love on you. Because of his love, in your heart you'll know that you're his child. And not just his child but a child who he died for and gave his righteousness to.

Chapter 5 - Change of Kingdoms
When we accept Christ, even though sin no longer has control of us, it still kicks around and tries to regain control. It uses guerrilla warfare and attempts to throw us off. We're delivered from sin but not from its attacks. If we don't keep it in check, sin easily turns our:
-natural instints into lust
-natural appetites into indulgence
-need for clothing and shelter into materialism
-normal sexual interest into immorality
But after Christ came into our lives we could distinguish the darkness of sin from the light of righteousness.

The Chasing Song
They say the race can only have one winner
And you know you've got to pull out front to win
God knows the only time I'm winning
Is when I'm chasing Him
-Andrew Peterson