What is The Art of Holiness? Dr. Carolyn Moore

For some of us, personal finances aren't just personal. They include loved ones, neighbors, the communities we call home, and the causes we hold in our hearts. At Thrivent, planning your finances is bigger than just money. We help you put your plans into motion and faith into action so you can do more for the ones in your heart. Because sometimes, all you need to make a difference is someone to help you make it happen. Thrivent, where money means more.

Connect with us at Thrivent.com. Life Audio Hi, from the Salvation Army, you're listening to Words of Life. Welcome back to Words of Life. Today is our final episode with our friend, Dr. Carolyn Moore.

This series began on March 23rd, so if you missed any of these episodes, jump back to that date to get caught up. We want to sincerely thank Dr. Moore for her time, passion, and wisdom. It has been such an honor to have her on the show. And so once again, here's Bernie Dake and Dr. Carolyn Moore. For some of us, personal finances aren't just personal. They include loved ones, neighbors, the communities we call home, and the causes we hold in our hearts. At Thrivent, planning your finances is bigger than just money. We help you put your plans into motion and faith into action so you can do more for the ones in your heart. Because sometimes, all you need to make a difference is someone to help you make it happen. Thrivent, where money means more.

Connect with us at Thrivent.com. Welcome back to Words of Life. I'm Bernie Dake, and I have been so blessed to sit under the teaching, frankly, of Dr. Carolyn Moore, who's joined us for this series. And what a privilege. Welcome back. Thank you. It's just a good conversation. Thank you for asking good questions and letting me gush a little.

Tell me, what is the art of holiness? Well, I want to tell you a little of the story behind it, and I'll get to it. When I turned 50, I remember sitting in a parking lot one day, and I just said it was kind of one of those offhanded things that you say to God, Lord, I spent the first 50 years of my life kind of scattershot. I'm a generalist, not a focused person. I'm very much a multitasker.

I've done lots of things, but I'm sort of just not a champion of any one thing, not a master of any one thing. I like to focus the second half of my life, because I fully intend to live till I'm 100, at least. And so what do you want me to focus the second half of my life on? And I asked that question, and I went on with my day. And for several days after that, the question sat with me, and I listened.

And then it just dropped on me one day. I heard the Lord say, holiness, I want you to spend the second half of your life on holiness. Learn everything there is to know about holiness.

We've already talked about this in other episodes. I went to Asbury Theological Seminary, which is the birthplace of the holiness movement. And I am a Methodist and a Wesleyan by theology, so scriptural holiness is what we're supposed to be spreading throughout the land. I get all that, but I'm not the brightest bulb in the seminary box.

I'll just tell you that right now. And so I had never really spent a lot of time on the Word. I really thought in my head, holiness kind of snakes me right on back to about the early 1900s, and all the women are wearing long dresses and high collars. But the Lord said, holiness. And so I said, okay, I will spend the second half of my life on holiness. And I started reading everything I could read on holiness. I read John Wesley on holiness. I read Oswald Chambers on holiness, C.S. Lewis on holiness.

I read more contemporary authors like John Oswald. That's a fabulous book on holiness. And I fell in love with holiness as an idea and came to really understand what—no, there's no—I need to retract that. There's no understanding holiness.

There's certainly no understanding what God means when God says, you're to be holy because I'm holy. But there is something of an awareness that, oh, oh, holiness is not what—it's been given a bad rap all these years. We've been thinking of holiness as this set of rules that we need to live by. Otherwise, this mean God is going to zap us. That's what we think of holiness as. We tend to think of it in puritatical ways. But that's not holiness.

I say this all the time. God is not going behind me trying to fix everything I've broken. God wants to go ahead of me to use me to fix a broken world. That's the way God has asked me to understand holiness. And He's saying, I'm holy. He's saying to me, Carolyn, God is saying to me, I am holy. So now you can be holy because I live in you, because I live in you, because I am walking you out into the world.

I'll go out before you and you spread scriptural holiness as you go. Miriam Swanson has the best illustration of this. She's an evangelist from England, now lives in the United States, works with college students.

Look her up. She says, we tend to think of holiness as you're wearing a pair of white jeans and all the world is spaghetti sauce. Your whole life is trying to keep your jeans from getting stained, but the whole world is spaghetti sauce. That's the old worldview of holiness.

But she said, what if instead you're wearing white jeans? Sure, but you are carrying a bucket of Clorox and your job is just to spread it, just to spread the holiness of God before you as you go. And so holiness then is not a list of rules. Holiness is an art form. Holiness is Christ in me, bubbling up, bubbling out, bubbling over, spreading out before me, helping people see what the good life is. That's how I define holiness. Holiness is the good life and the art of holiness is learning to live this beautiful life filled with the Holy Spirit, operating in the gifts of the Spirit. So I started a blog site first called The Art of Holiness and I just started writing about holiness.

I've written several hundred blogs on the art of holiness and other things related to discipleship and what it means to spread scriptural holiness and what it means to be a follower of Jesus, to be Spirit-filled, all the things that kind of attach to the word holiness. And then about three years ago, four years ago, I think it's been four years ago now, my son-in-law said, I want you to make a podcast. I said, I'll be happy to, Pierce, but you're going to do it with me because I don't want to do a podcast by myself.

It's hard. And so Pierce and I began to interview people and just talk to them about what it means to be holy because God is and what it means to do discipleship, what it means to live the Spirit-filled life, what it means for one generation to encourage another generation. Pierce was with me for three years on The Art of Holiness and then he went and had a second child and thought that life was too busy for him.

I don't know what's up with that. I got a second grandchild out of that deal. So he stepped down.

He started a new position as well. So he just gave the two of us three beautiful years of that project together. Now, today, The Art of Holiness, which you can find at artofholiness.com, continues as a podcast. And I have three young women, all of whom are just on the front end of seminary, on the front end of vocational ministry, and I'm using the podcast to mentor them in the faith.

So I use all those amazing people that I interview like Craig Keener and all kinds of other folks to talk to them, just to help them to hear what holiness is about. It's an art. It's an art. Yeah. It's beautiful.

Yeah. For some of us, personal finances aren't just personal. They include loved ones, neighbors, the communities we call home, and the causes we hold in our hearts. At Thrivent, planning your finances is bigger than just money. We help you put your plans into motion and faith into action so you can do more for the ones in your heart.

Because sometimes all you need to make a difference is someone to help you make it happen. Thrivent, where money means more. Connect with us at thrivent.com. Now, are there other ways that our listeners can connect with you? Is The Art of Holiness the one place to hear your perspective? I've written a number of books. I've got four Bible studies, one called Supernatural, which is on a study of Luke chapter 9, one and two, and everything after that is a day in the life of Jesus doing supernatural ministry.

It's a workbook. I have three Bible studies on the Trinity, encounter the Father, encounter the Son, encounter the Holy Spirit. Then I have a book on the nineteen questions that every Methodist or Wesleyan-minded pastor has had to answer since the days of John Wesley.

I wrote a book on those nineteen questions called The Nineteen, and then I've written a book on what happens when women lead. All of that stuff you can find on theartofholiness.com, along with the podcast, the blogs, and a whole calendar of events that will tell you where I'm going to be. I'm all over the place teaching and preaching. So find one of those events and get involved, not because I'm there, but because I do great events, some of which are Salvation Army events. What a blessing. Out of those nineteen questions, is one of them, what are we having for lunch?

One of them is that even though we in our tradition specialize in covered-dish lunches, none of that is that. If you feed them, they will come. But I'll tell you the question that I love most of those nineteen. It's, do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life? So I'm going to ask you as a Wesleyan-minded follower of Jesus, do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life? I endeavor to be like Jesus. And I think when you ask me, do I expect? It is a hard concept for me to imagine, because I probably haven't been living expectantly, which is sad. That's really good.

That's really good. I think for me, it's honest. If I'm being, you know, I want to be transparent with you.

I live in the now. I value relationships. I'm often leveraging relationships to try to get things done in my occupation. I love the opportunity to interact with people that may not know the Lord.

And out of relationship, I want them to see something different in me. That you said, do I expect to be made whole, to be made loving, to be made perfect in love in this life? I haven't. I don't know that I've had that mindset. Yeah. Yeah.

But wow, you've just hit on something really good. And that is the expectancy. We actually remember we said in one of the other episodes that we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies in some mysterious way that these things happen. We can have an assurance, which means I can begin to live expectantly because Jesus certainly expects me to be made perfect in love in this life. He said, be perfect because your heavenly Father is perfect. So we're perfect by association and we're perfect because we are being sanctified every day. We're being made perfect. He does the work in us every day, every day, every day. So yeah.

Yeah. I say live expectantly. That would be my encouragement to you. Live expectantly because in Christ we can be made perfect in love in this life. It's the distinctive that we have as Wesleyans. We are being entirely sanctified. Thanks be to God. Amen.

I receive that. Lord Jesus, my prayer for everyone in the sound of this podcast is that you would be faithful to do in us and through us what you have promised and what you've called us toward. Lord, I pray that you would give us a grace to live expectantly, trusting what you've said is possible, that we might be made perfect in love in this life.

God, break our hearts for the things that break your heart. Give us the Father's heart for the poor, the destitute, the ones who don't yet know, the ones who did not realize they could have your favor. God, give us a heart for all those that you are already calling toward yourself and Lord, not just an urgency to want to see them become Christians, but a heart that loves them the way you love them. God, that we might expect to have your heart within us, your spirit flowing through our veins, your love coursing through us even as we serve and as we follow and as we give and as we love. And if you would do that, God, we would be so grateful. We love you, Jesus. We honor and worship you.

And all God's people said, amen. The Salvation Army's mission, Doing the Most Good, means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army. Visit salvationarmyusa.org to offer your support. You can subscribe to Words of Life on your favorite podcast store or visit salvationarmysoundcast.org. Join us next time for the Salvation Army's Words of Life. Thanks so much for listening to Words of Life. We want to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the show. Visit lifeaudio.com, where you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They have shows about prayer, Bible studying, parenting, and more. Thanks again for listening.

We'll see you next time. For some of us, personal finances aren't just personal. They include loved ones, neighbors, the communities we call home, and the causes we hold in our hearts. At Thrivent, planning your finances is bigger than just money. We help you put your plans into motion and faith into action so you can do more for the ones in your heart.

Because sometimes all you need to make a difference is someone to help you make it happen. Thrivent, where money means more. Connect with us at thrivent.com. Have you ever attempted to read the entire Bible? Did you do it, or did you only make it part way? I'm John Stonguey, and I host a podcast that will make it possible for you to make it through the entire Bible, one chapter at a time. I've been hosting the Chapter a Day audio Bible podcast since 2015, and every single day of the week, I read one chapter of Scripture, then follow that up with a time of prayer. And if you're looking for daily insights and inspiration directly from God's Word, I hope you'll give the Chapter a Day audio Bible a listen. You can find it at lifeaudio.com or on your favorite podcasting app.