Are You Truly Living a Holy Life_ The Truth About Holiness By Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel

0:00 Every sinful choice makes the next one easier. Every act of obedience makes the next act of obedience easier. Every choice leaves a mark. Every decision strengthens something. When you decide on something, it strengthens that something. For example, if you decide on holiness, then holiness becomes easier the next time.

0:28 But if you decide on sin, then sin becomes a lot easier next time. You see, the first time I sinned, I wasn't comfortable. But then I sinned again, and then I was, you know, less uncomfortable. But if I continue on sinning, it will become natural. I will sin without one little tiny regret anymore. Why? Because I became so accustomed to it, it became my life. So we need to be very careful on what we decide on. Because that decision will strengthen the outcome. You decide on doing good.

1:10 Doing good will be easier and easier as you go along. But you decide on doing evil. Evil will become a lot easier to do. Because practice makes perfect. Practice makes perfect. St. Paul again in Galatians chapter 6 says, Verses 7 to 8. Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. This is the word of God. Through Saint Paul. But it is the Holy Spirit, God, speaking, inspiring Saint Paul to write this. Whatever a man sows, he will also reap.

1:49 If you sow love, you will reap love. If you sow hatred, you will reap hatred. Don't expect to reap love. If you have sown hatred, whatever you choose to sow, you'll end up harvesting at the end, my beloved. Every choice leaves a mark. Look at this. Every repeated decision forms habits. Where do habits come from? From repeated decisions.

2:17 I'm going to go to the club and I decided to go to the club again. And I decided to go to the club again and again and again and again and again. It became a habit. I don't need to think about it twice. I just go naturally to the club. But I decided to go to church. The first time it was difficult to make that decision. Because my mom was nagging me all the time. Go to church.

2:37 Go to church. I was trying just to get her off my case. So I went with an effort. But then the next time I decided to go to church. It was easier. And then I decided to go again and again. The hundredth time. Became natural. Decisions. Repeated decisions. Form habits in you. My child. And then what happens?

3:02 Habits become character. Character is who you are. And what you are. Character. Shapes our destiny. So vital. Am I going to end up with Christ? Or end up with satan? Because your character is going to shape your destiny. And then, because the character shapes that destiny, this is why even small daily choices matter. No matter how small they are, don't take them for granted. You need to be responsible for your decisions. Responsible. Now, this was a bit negative, wasn't it? Now, let's hear the good news now. Good news.

3:46 Thank God for the good news. Our past influences us only. It does not imprison us. So whatever we have gathered along the way, now I am 25, I am 35, I am 45, I am 55, I'm 75, I'm 85, I'm 105. Whatever I gathered along my life journey on earth, I met friends along the way, I got married, I listened to this, I did this, I applied for this, I went there, I came here. I tried everything under the sun. All of these things put together made me who I am. But all the influences along the way that shaped the character of me, I am still not imprisoned.

4:38 It is only influenced what kind of a person I become. But it does not imprison me forever. Why? Why? Because 2 Corinthians 5.17, St. Paul gives us this hope. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. All you need to do, come back to the Lord Jesus. He'll make you brand new from scratch. As if you are born just now. I've sinned a million times. I came back to Christ. I left Christ. I didn't leave him, but I walked with Christ. I ended up being sinless.

5:22 What happened to the million sins? The Lord says, I washed it away for you with my own blood. I made you a new creation. Absolutely brand new, spotless. In other words, don't ever lose hope and say it's too late. That's Satan whispering in your ears. Satan doesn't want you to come back to the Lord Jesus. He will say, just look at you. You know, how many mistakes have you made in your life? You should be ashamed of yourself.

5:58 Do you think God is going to care about someone like you? A piece of wreck? A piece of filth? Step on it. Go to Christ. Not only go, but run to him. And say, Lord, forgive me. For I have sinned against you and against heaven. I'm not worthy to be called your son. But accept me as a servant in your house. The prodigal son. Luke chapter 15.

6:24 That prodigal son did everything wrong under the sun. But the moment he thought to go back and ask for his dad's forgiveness, dad came running, embraced him, accepted him as a son. Yet he said, I'm going to go and tell my dad, accept me as a servant. But dad accepted him as his own son. Dad, our heavenly father, God the father will say, you are my son, you are my son, and you will always be my son.

6:52 The only thing you need to do, come back to me. Don't walk away from me. Come back to me. I'll make you a brand new creation in my beloved son, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Amen? Amen? Come on. We continue with the good news. Perhaps you were raised in fear. Perhaps you witnessed anger. Domestic violence. Children are traumatized by what they witness, you know, with their parents, the husband bashing the wife, yelling, screaming all the time, smashing things, breaking things, alcohol problems, drug problems, gambling problems, issues. Children are traumatized by it. Perhaps you learned bitterness. Christ can heal what the world has damaged in you. Christ can heal it all. No matter what has become of you,

7:57 Christ can change it all if you are truly meaning it. You need to mean it, my child. Come back and say, Lord, I can't do it anymore. I need your help. The Lord will. 100% He will. The moment the Lord sees that you are honest with yourself, He knows you more than you. So don't Act. Don't. Put a mask on.

8:27 Come as you are. Yes? The Lord rebuked the church leader in Theatira. You know, in the book of Revelation, when you read chapter 2 and 3, it talks about the seven churches in Asia Minor. Theatira. Theatira is where the word theater comes from. He says, whatever you do, don't ever go on that stage and start acting before me.

8:52 You better come to me being honest with yourself, not faking it, my child. The moment you genuinely repent, the moment you genuinely ask for forgiveness, the Lord will change everything in you. No matter how bad you've been and how far and deep you've gone, the Lord will bring you back home. Not a problem. The gospel is not merely about forgiveness. The gospel is more so about transformation, my beloved. Transformation. If our belief system has been shaped by many influences, then one question remains. Who ultimately decides? See, my beloved, God has given every human being one extraordinary gift.

9:45 The freedom to choose. What is that extraordinary gift to choose? It is called the will, my beloved. One of the most precious gifts God ever gave the human race, not Christians. only, every single human being. It is the will. He gave us the freedom to choose and the power to choose through the will, my beloved. One of the greatest gifts God has given humanity is free will. Why? Because love cannot exist without freedom. Love cannot exist without freedom. That's why he gave us free will. God invites us to love him. He never forces us to love him. God invites us to love him. He never forces us. That's why in marriage, when any... any of the parties is forced to get married, that marriage is actually null and void.

10:55 The church does not classify it as marriage. If the church finds out later on that it was done by force, not through free will, that marriage is not valid in the first place. That's what they call annulment. Annulment meaning marriage never took place because it was done forcefully. Not willingly. Because you're supposed to marry the one you love. So when it's to do with love, love cannot exist without freedom.

11:26 You cannot marry someone you don't love. That is life imprisonment in a way. It is life imprisonment. That's why when it comes to love, God will never force nobody to love him. He will only ask you to love him. I never order you to love Him. Love is a choice. Even when it comes to God. You choose to love people.

11:56 You choose to love the one whom you are about to get married to. And you choose not to love and walk away. Love is a choice. That's why love cannot exist without freedom. And freedom cannot be expressed without the will. Because With the will, I decide to say yes or to say no. And that happened through freedom and based on love. That's why, my beloved, when God created Adam, he placed him in the Garden of Eden.

12:29 And because Adam was his son, and as a son is free, the slave is not free, but the son is free. That's why God said to Adam, from these trees you can eat, from the tree of life you can eat, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you cannot eat. If you eat from it, surely you shall die. But he left the choice for Adam to decide, not God to decide. He just warned him out of love, based on freedom and with the free will. Adam just decided to eat from the forbidden tree.

13:01 It was Adam's full responsibility in choosing freely, willingly, with love, to listen to his wife instead of his God. That's what happens, husbands, when you listen to your wife's And disregard God, you get yourself into a lot of mischief, a lot of trouble. All right. So here we go. Listen to this. Deuteronomy 30, 19. It says, I have said before you, it's the Lord God speaking. I have said before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life. God is saying you need to choose. I've put life and death before you. Blessing and cursing. It's up to you. What do you want to choose? I put the light and darkness. There is Christ and there is Satan. You choose, my child. You want to come

13:50 with Christ or you want to go with Satan? It's up to you. But when you decide, don't blame God on it. You chose. It wasn't God's choosing. It was yours. You choose the wrong friends and then you hurt yourself and then you blame God. Doesn't work. Doesn't work, my beloved. All right. God created us with free will, unlike robots.

14:18 We are free to choose. Every day we choose. Every single day. We choose either obedience or disobedience. We choose either forgiveness or bitterness. We choose truth or lies. We choose Christ or our own self. God never removes our freedom because genuine love must be freely given. Genuine love cannot exist without freedom. That's why freedom is indispensable to love. Inseparable, cannot be separated. Wherever there is genuine love, there is freedom.

14:55 Wherever there is freedom, there is choices. Wherever there is choices, there is the will to choose on what to do, what to say, and how to walk. And that will is used every single day by all of us. By all of us. My son come to church, I'll think about it. You need to decide and say, yes, I'm coming right now, dad. Let's go. Look at this. The will chooses the direction of our life. The conscious mind presents the options. The conscious mind is your rational mind.

15:34 The one you use on a daily basis. The conscious mind presents the options. The nous, the subconscious mind, the heart, desires. So the conscious mind, what does it do? It presents the options to you. The heart desires what has been presented to it. The will decides on what the heart desires. So I think about it, then I long for it, therefore I will choose it. Yeah? I thought about stealing. Man, it felt good. Because I said, I'm going to be rich. Shortcut.

16:26 The quickest way becoming rich. I'm going to steal. So the heart desired that the will will fall for that desire and will choose that desire. Now, when the will decides, what does the body do? It carries out that decision. So I need to steal. I'm at home. I need to go to the bank. So I'm going to pick myself up with the body. The body is that car that drives me to my destiny. Where I want to commit that crime. Yes? So the body carries out that decision.

17:06 And look at Joshua. Joshua, son of Nun, 2415. He says, choose for yourselves this day. Whom you will serve. You want to serve God. Or do you want to serve Satan. Choose for yourself. Today my beloved. Make a choice. Decide say Lord. From now on. I want you Lord Jesus. No one else. From now on. I'm going to go to the church, no more clubs. From now on, I'm going to praise you. I'm not going to swear anymore.

17:36 From now on, I'm not going to go to those dark alleys anymore. I'm going to come to the light of Christ. From now on, I'm not going to lie. I'm going to speak the truth. From now on, no more Satan. It is Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Decide. Choose, my beloved. Make that decision and make it confidently. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. Many people say, I couldn't help myself. I tried it, but I couldn't help myself. But the scripture teaches us that by God's grace, we are never slaves to sin. We are never slaves to sin. The will is weakened by sin, but it is not destroyed. It is not destroyed. The will is only weakened by sin, but it's not destroyed. The grace of God strengthens us to choose righteousness. Now, when we sin,

18:44 my beloved, it weakens the will. Every sinful choice makes the next sinful choice easier. What I said earlier. The first time you choose something wrong, a bit of a struggle. The second time, a little bit easier. The third time, the hundredth time, it will be just naturally done. So every sinful choice makes the next one easier. Every act of obedience makes the next act of obedience easier. Look at this St. Paul in Romans 7.19. For the good that I will, I'm willing to do, I do not do.

19:24 But the evil I will not to do, that I practice. The will is weak when we sin. What St. Paul is saying, he's saying, I want to choose to do good. And every time I'm coming to do good, I'm ending up doing something bad. Like I'm struggling. And every time I say I will never do anything bad, I keep on doing it. And every time I say I want to do good things, I'm not doing it. I'm doing the evil things. What is going on? Well, sin has made your will extremely weak. Therefore, that will is now being dragged into committing sinful acts all the time. Because you made it used to it. You made it, used to it. Look at the church fathers, what they say.

20:14 The passions, passions, my beloved, are those habits, that sinful habits that we keep on doing all the time. You know when you do something wrong all the time, all the time, all the time? The church fathers call that a passion. It becomes a passion, not a desire. It becomes a passion. The passions are habits formed by repeated misuse of our natural powers. I watched on YouTube something I shouldn't have watched. I said, I'm not going to watch it again. And then again, second day, I watched it again. I said, no, I'm not going to watch it again. And then I watched it again. And I said, I will never watch it again. And I watched it again.

21:00 And I watched it again. Hundred times, a thousand times, a million times. You won't be able to escape it. Every time you'll just run to it. It becomes addictive. It's a habit. It's a passion now. It's a passion. My beloved, sin is rarely an isolated event. It becomes a habit. The fathers call these habits passions. A passion is something that begins to control us instead of us controlling it. The first time I took that white powder, I hated myself the following day. I said, I will never touch that white powder again. But then my friends, thanks to my friends, they said, come on, man. You're a man. Come on. Don't be weak. Take it, bro.

22:01 Prove that you're a man, brother. P-pressure. So I took it again. And then I hated myself. But then I went again. And I went again. If you keep on taking that white powder, you will be a slave to it. Next time, you will break everyone and everything to give you the white powder. You'll start doing everything wrong under the sun just to get it. Because now... I am shivering.

22:27 I have to take it. Why? Because those habits became passions by repeating them all the time. Imagine you repeat the word of God all the time in your head. You'll overcome every addiction. Every addiction. You'll overcome it. Attach yourself to the Lord Jesus. To his word. To his person. To his beloved church. Come to Christ even if it's a struggle. And it will be a struggle coming back from the worldly habits. It is a struggle because it's not easy to come off those chains. But you want to live? You want to be free? You want to have peace? Yes. Come back to the Lord Jesus. Stop going to the wrong places to the wrong people for the wrong reasons. Stop it my child. Make that choice today my beloved. Decide on it. Say Lord I can't

23:41 do it on my own. I need your grace and mercy to carry me. Help me Lord. Set me free Lord from my sinful nature. Set me free from the bondage of Satan From all the habits and the addictions that I have inherited along the way. Release me Lord. I want to be your child. I want to be your son. I want to be your daughter. And I want to make you proud Lord. Amen. Repentance restores the will.

24:19 Sin weakens the will. But never destroys it. It only weakens it. Repentance restores the will. And makes it strong. Repentance. Repentance is more than feeling sorry. It is a change of mind. True repentance changes the following. Please listen. True repentance changes the following. Our thinking. Our desires. Our direction.

24:45 Acts 3.19. Repent therefore and be converted. Repentance changes our thinking. Our desires. Don't let the desires be passions. And our direction. What kind of a direction are we walking in? Is it dark? Is it light? Where are we going? Repentance changes all that and brings you back to the Lord Jesus.

25:07 The true way that leads you to eternal life. Also, my beloved, notice the connection. Repentance begins in the mind. That's what it begins. Repentance begins in the mind. Therefore, before behavior changes, your thinking has to change. You cannot stop going to the club. You need to change your way of thinking in order to stop going to the club.

25:39 You can't say, I'm not going to go to the club. I'm not going to go to the club. No, just change your way of thinking and say, instead of saying, I'm not going to the club, say, I'll start going to church. I'm going to go to the church. I'm going to go to the church. I'm going to go to the church. You keep on saying that, you'll end up going to the church. The moment you change your mind, your behavior changes. Your direction changes. Instead of going to the club, now I started going to the church. Stop fighting the behavior. Fight the way of thinking. And how do you fight the way of thinking? Feed your mind with the word of Christ. Read the Holy Bible. Read the Holy Bible. And keep on reading the Holy Bible.

26:29 And keep on coming to church. And keep on coming to the body and the blood of Christ. Receiving that body and blood. Keep on coming. Don't come once, twice, three times and say, oh it's not working. There is no use. No. Consistency pays off. You will change. Christ never lies. All those who are in Christ Jesus are a new creation. Christ never lies. That is why repentance is the doorway to transformation. You want to change? Ask the Lord for forgiveness. And you mean it. Don't act.

27:14 Because the Lord knows. He knows if you are meaning it or you are just faking it. That's why people don't change because they don't mean it. Deep down, they don't want to let go of those sinful habits. Say, Lord, let me hate those sinful habits. Let me hate them. When you repent, we become the temple of the Holy Spirit.

27:39 1 Corinthians 3, 16-17. Look at St. Paul. Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? At baptism... God does not simply forgive us. He comes to dwell within us. When you receive the sacrament of the holy baptism, you put on the temple of God, which is Christ.

28:02 That temple that you put on through baptism, God now is dwelling in you. When he came, he was called Emmanuel, God with us. But when we received the baptism, the holy baptism, it became now God not only with us, but now God in us. And there is a humongous difference between God with us and God in us. God is with you, but are you with him? But when God is in you and you allow him to work through you, no, you will become a totally different person to what you were before. God changes that human being 100%.

28:49 God no longer dwells only in the temple made by human hands, meaning the church building out of brick and mortar, not only dwells in it, but through baptism and the life of the church, he dwells within his people. You are the true temple of God. God is dwelling in you, not just in brick and mortar, a church. You are the true church. God wants your heart. That is the temple.

29:15 That is the altar. The holy altar is your heart. My son, give me your heart and let your eyes observe my ways. You are the church. When we come to the church on Fridays and Sundays, yes, that is the church of the Lord Jesus. But don't forget, he's dwelling in you. if you don't have a place for Christ in your heart you come to a building you're not going to find Jesus Christ you need to find the Lord inside of you first in order to find him on Sunday at that universal church amen This gives every Christian incredible dignity and responsibility. I am dignified for being the son of God, but with the son of God also comes responsibility. If I'm expecting God to be my dad, then this dad expects me to be his son.

30:13 Dad has given me everything that dad is supposed to give, but then dad will ask of me to be his son. Am I his son? If I'm swearing and lying and Stealing and all that. What kind of a son am I to the almighty God? The son has to behave like his dad. Isn't it? Yes. So as Christians. Are we reflecting our heavenly father in our daily life? Or are we reflecting the enemy? My beloved. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. One God. Amen. Our father who art in heaven.

30:55 hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgave our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.