Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. ( Hebrews 12:14 14 Follow after peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord: )

There is a practical holiness without which we will not see the Lord. Many live as if this were not so.

There are professing Christians who live such unholy lives that they will hear Jesus’s dreadful words, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness” ( Matthew 7:23 23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. ). Paul says to professing believers, “If you live according to the flesh you will die” ( Romans 8:13 13 for if ye live after the flesh, ye must die; but if by the Spirit ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live. ).

So, there is a holiness without which no one will see the Lord. And learning to fight for holiness by faith in future grace is supremely important.

There is another way to pursue holiness that backfires and leads to death. Paul warns us against serving God any other way than by faith in his enabling grace. God is not “served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” ( Acts 17:25 25 neither is he served by men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; ). Any effort to serve God that does not, in that very act, depend on him as the reward of our hearts and the power of our service, will dishonor him as a needy pagan god.

Peter describes the alternative to such self-reliant service of God, “Whoever serves, [let him do so] as one who serves by the strength that God supplies — in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” ( 1 Peter 4:11 11 if any man speaketh, `speaking' as it were oracles of God; is any man ministereth, `ministering' as of the strength which God supplieth: that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, whose is the glory and the dominion for ever and ever. Amen. ). And Paul says, “I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me” ( Romans 15:18 18 For I will not dare to speak of any things save those which Christ wrought through me, for the obedience of the Gentiles, by word and deed, ; see also 1 Corinthians 15:10 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not found vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. ).

Moment by moment, grace arrives to enable us to do “every good work” that God appoints for us. “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work” ( 2 Corinthians 9:8 8 And God is able to make all grace abound unto you; that ye, having always all sufficiency in everything, may abound unto every good work: ).

The fight for good works is a fight to believe the promises future grace.