When I was growing up, the daughter of a Holiness (Pentecostal) Preacher, there were times that life wasn't easy!  The very title, "Holiness Preacher" conjured up mental pictures that were hard to explain to people at school who asked what it meant. They saw the ladies at our church, no make-up,no jewelry, sleeves that covered the elbow and slacks? Forget that! Looking back, it seems to me,their holiness was a totally outward show that didn't necessarily reflect the inward motives. A lot of them had tongues, not of the Holy Ghost, but of gossip! Sometimes I feel that I have failed in so many ways. If I could mend a broken heart with my hands, or heal a sick body or broken spirit by my will or my words I would do it. There is a helpless feeling when you have done all you can do and it doesn't seem enough. We talk about casting all our cares on Him, but talking it and doing it are two different matters. So while I am feeling inadequate, my soul's enemy tells me it is because I am not HOLY enough! That is a wonderful roller coaster guilt trip for anyone to get on! I am figuring that if Satan tries to get to me by using that line, he possibly uses it on you too, so let me give you the scripture "weapon" that you can use against him: Psalm 51:7-15 Soak me in your laundry and I'll come out clean, scrub me and I'll have a snow-white life. Tune me in to foot tapping songs, set these once-broken bones to dancing. Don't look too close for blemishes, give me a clean bill of health. God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life. Don't throw me out with the trash, or fail to breathe holiness in me. Bring me back from gray exile, put a fresh wind in my sails! Give me a job teaching rebels your ways so the lost can find their way home. Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God, and I'll sing anthems to your life-giving ways. Unbutton my lips, dear God; I'll let loose with your praise. Reading this Psalm, that David wrote after Nathan the Prophet came to him when he had commited adultry with Bathsheba, I feel redeemed. Holiness is most beautifully displayed in a broken and contrite spirit, one that is submitted to God, not arrogant or proud, but humble and moldable in God's hand. When you get to that place you can say "Have Thine Own Way Lord, have thine own way, You are the potter I am the clay, Mold me and make me after your will, while I am waiting, yielded and still." I think that "waiting yielded and still" is the hardest part, while we are being molded it can get uncomfortable and while we are trying to be a "living sacrifice", Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship, we tend to climb down off the altar choosing to be free of the cleansing rather than get "scrubbed behind the spiritual ears!"

Don't let Satan hand you a bill of goods about your not being Holy or good, read  Titus 3:5 He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.

Be blessed, pray, know that you are Holy because He is Holy!

Larry Gatlin wrote a song which Johnny Cash recorded and we sang it many times, it was called simply, "Help Me." Part of the lyrics went like this: Lord, Help me walk Another mile, just one more mile; I'm tired of walkin' all alone. Lord, Help me smile Another smile, just one more smile; You know I just can't make it on my own.  If you read the Psalms, you find many times that the Psalmist David said these same words, over and over again. Oh I know they sound different, but these words capture the heart of the writer. As I have been going through boxes of old pictures and looking at faces smiling at me, relatives, long gone, children grown with children of their own, minister's and church members we thought were loyal friends that have moved on, it almost depressed me. The song made famous by the Righteous Brothers says "Time goes by so slowly and time can do so much.." the true part of that is that time can do so much, the slowly part, not so much. Job 7:1-6 "Human life is a struggle, isn't it? It's a life sentence to hard labor. Like field hands longing for quitting time and working stiffs with nothing to hope for but payday, I'm given a life that meanders and goes nowhere—months of aimlessness, nights of misery! I go to bed and think, 'How long till I can get up?'I toss and turn as the night drags on—and I'm fed up! My days come and go swifter than the click of knitting needles, and then the yarn runs out—an unfinished life! Sounds to me like Job was the epitomy of depression! It is easy to let yourself slip into that familiar "robe" of depression. I am convinced that when Satan was defeated as Jesus died on the cross and then rose again, he looked around for something that would defeat the body of Christ in a manner that would catch us "off guard" to the point that we would just be overcome with this damned thing and  wilt like a flower that needs water! There are OBVIOUS things that he could bring to us, but we recognize obvious and therefore we could ignore him or tell him to go on back to his home (hell) and leave us alone! BUT...this depression thing is meant to kill us without us ever raising our hand to stop him.

So do you see how we have to handle this? The devil is like a wasp that comes in on us while we are doing our every day chores, lands right on your head (in your mind) and if you don't "brush him off" you will find yourself stung with thoughts of suicide, worthlessness, feeling that you have made all the wrong choices for your life and feeling like "it is all over for you"...as I say this I feel that one of you who will read this is feeling this RIGHT NOW...so stand up shake your fist in the devils face and tell him that "you have overcome him by the blood of the Lamb and the Word of your testimony" Revelations 12:11, and your testimony should be "Satan I don't have to fight you, you are defeated by the Blood of Jesus and I know that no matter how bad things look, they will all work together for my good because I love the Lord and I am the called according to His purpose by the Word of God in Romans 8:28!"  Also I am asking you to read Psalm 30...the whole chapter, but I will give you one piece of verse 5 which says..."weeping may endure for the night, but JOY comes in the morning!" and I say AMEN and AMEN to that!