Holiness is new affections

You will cleanse no sin from your life that you have not first recognized as being pardoned through the cross. This is because holiness always starts in the heart. The essence of holiness is not new behaviour, activity or disciplines. Holiness is new affections, new desires and new motives that then lead to new behaviour. If you don’t see your sin as completely pardoned, then your affections, desires and motives will be wrong. You will aim to prove yourself. Your focus will be the consequences of your sin rather than hating the sin itself and desiring God in its place. Tim Chester - You Can Change

Tim Chester nails it with this quote from his book. How long did I live exactly like this! Trying to keep the law in my own strength and for my own glory. And what an abismal failure I was! Sin wasn’t about God, it was about consequences only. How it made me feel, how it made others feel, God only came into the picture as judge. I thank God for the day he opened my blind eyes and took away my heart of stone. Only then did I see that He was much more to be desired than anything else, and on that day I was born again. To grow in holiness is to grow in our desire for God. The more we desire God the less we desire sin, and the more glory He receives.

The love of Jesus is the source of salvation. He loves, he looks, he touches us, we live. – C.H. Spurgeon