Holy living.....is that something we could use a guidebook on today? We have that in God's Word, but are we using it? The book of Leviticus is not just about priests...beasts...and feasts. It's more about holiness. Holy/Holiness is mentioned 152 times in Leviticus, more than any other book in the Bible. So let's take a few minutes today to look at exactly what holiness is and ask whether it applies to anyone other than God?
What does it mean to be holy?
- It means to be separated from, set apart or different
Who is holy?
- God reminds us six times in Levitcus of what He is ....I am holy.
- He calls us to be holy as well. Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy (Lev. 18:2).
Why are we to be holy?
- First of all, God gives us the command to be holy.
- Secondly, since His commands are enablements, we can believe that He will enable us to do so and in turn, glorify Him with our obedience.
How can we be holy?
- The first step toward holiness is the admission of our own sin and the recognition that Christ is our only Redeemer from that sin.
- Holiness involves obedience and discipline. It's only when God's holiness increasingly begins to touch every area of our lives that we can say we're starting to make progress in being holy.
- When our motives to be holy are to glorify God, not just to be recognized as "holy people".
- We live before Him openly and sincerely, hiding nothing, fearing nothing.
The good news is that holy living is possible, otherwise, God would never have said eight times in His Word, Be holy, for I am holy". His commandment is the promise of His enablement! God's desire is for us to be a holy people, not perfect, but holy:
* Set apart from the sin of the world.
* Separated from the things that draw us away from Him.
* Different in our thoughts, feelings and actions.
Take time to be holy today. Claim God's enabling promise that we CAN be holy, as He is.
19 comments:
No. He formed us holy, its only that we allowed sin into the world that set us apart. Now we have to strive for holiness. Of course it starts with the remittance of sin, but it goes from there by keeping ourselves in tune with God through the Holy Spirit which is the spring of living water and through the Word of God which is our bread. The last mentioned part of the fruit of the Spirit tells us that its up to us to make it happen. Its called self control. Of course it can only be accomplished when we purposely accept Gods forgiveness, grace and mercy, when we claim salvation through the blood of Christ and believe that He is the Son of God.
This is fantastic!
THANKS Anonymous! Will we ever learn your true identity?
In reference to last week's lesson, (Exodus)....
To sum up the 2 articles in question...Alec Wilhelm speaks of
"national spirit"...Well, my Spirit is the "Holy Spirit", who dwells inside of me, and guides me in the Ways of my Lord, not the ways of the world. Jesus summed up the whole 10 Commandments, with just 2 new ones, in New Testament..They are found in Math. 22:37-40. To Love God with all our heart, soul, and body, and love neighbor as ourselves...When we obey these 2 Commandments, we no longer have a desire to break any of the other 10!...Supernatural!...If you do not have Jesus in your heart, you are not going to understand what the Bible is trying to relay to you...It is not about "America", it
is about "Americans", and for them to "desire" to live for the One True God..He created us to give Him
"pleasure"...(We are "in" the world, but not "of" the world...Praise!
No, we are told be holy as God is holy. Our bodies are to be a temple for the Holy Spirt. Of course we have the so-called wonderful thing called a "sinful nature" that prohibits us from being holy. We can only achieve holiness by confessing our sins and accepting the salvation offered through Christ.
Tonia you also asked what have we learned from the study of Leviticus that we didn't know before. I can say that between your class and Monday's bible study with LouAnn that I never really understood the meaning of all the sacrifices, priests garments, etc. I never correlated them to Christ and what he did for us. It has really been an amazing journey for me. Thanks
In my opinion, Holiness is only from God...we could not attain it, by ourselves...God did originally create Adam and Eve to be holy, but after they sinned, in the garden, it became a different story, for them, as well as for us....After salvation and receiving the Holy spirit into our lives, we are to "be set apart", as God is set apart, from the desires of the world..Only the Holy Spirit can help us to do this, as we ask Him, to guide our steps, and to keep our "eyes on the Prize"...As we strive to listen to Him, and obey His lead, we are practicing "holiness"..our
desire is to please only our "Audience of One"..
Holiness is the main theme of this book. I looked at it as all about rules.
I also liked the explanation about why Aaron's sons were consumed by fire.
Jesus came to "fulfill the law"...
(10 Commandments)..
We obey those commandments, not because we "need to be saved", but because "we are saved"! Praise!
True, deep "joy", comes from a life, lived according to God's plan... This touched me, last night, as I was going over some notes, and felt led to share with you...
While doing my lesson this week I realized I never knew the true meaning of the phrase "Lamb of God". Reading how God taught the Israelites the importance of sin through animal sacrafices. Not just any animal but a special one to them, unblemished. God gave the ultimate sacrafice of His son, Jesus, Lamb of God for our sins. It was a true ah-ha moment for me.
No, Holiness is not just for God. As believers in Jesus Christ we are called to turn from our former lives and ways, and be set apart from the world. In our lives we should be different from a non-believer in words and actions; so Christ is shown to those who do not know Him in a personal way. If we are not striving to live more Christ-like in our own lives, how could a non-believer see Christ reflected and come to know Christ through us? We must go into the world to reach others for Christ but do this as Holy examples; which is far different from condoning the ways of the world or embracing them ourselves.
I liked studying the intricacies of Leviticus this week, all the differences in the types of offerings to God for sin. When you read on this an visualize the complexity of the ceremony and think about how soberly the people went about making the offerings; it brings to mind a couple of key points for me: 1) How grateful I am that Jesus Christ the Lamb of God was slain for all sin and 2) How sad it is that we make sin in our lives very often a casual event, and we do not appreciate enough the level of sacrifice which was required of Christ to cover us. Perhaps if we thought about having to do complicated offerings for every single sin we committed even for one week; we would recognize the seriousness of any sin in our lives. We would surely have a greater appreciation of our availability to the throne of God through Jesus Christ anytime, anywhere.
Good comments ladies! Nancy, we talked about that very point in class ~ how much the people had to go through and "sacrifice" to have their sins forgiven. Yet, we have it so easy and how often do we neglect to ask forgiveness?
Yes, we often carry around burdens of sin weighing on us when we could so easily confess it to Jesus. You are so right, Tonia. And I am enjoying being able to participate in this study online.Thanks for making it open in this capacity.
To comment to what I have learned about Leviticus... I learned a lot in Leviticus about the scarifices/offerings, that was very interesting to me. I also learned what Holiness really is!!! We need to strive for holiness everyday :)
WOW---Kathleen says....this teaching is so full. 1st Thank You for the charts. They were very helpful. This is a lesson that can be studied and restudied. Which I look fwd to doing. I never understood the sacrifices. Previously it seemed archaic and barbaric. And the feast in the past for me seemed ritualistic old world. Sadly, this prompted me to just skip over them. But Now I "see" & not just hear the correlations to Christ and reverance to God. On a very personal level I am seeing God leading me with my previous lessons to this one. In particular my word absorb and obdience looking like complete submission. It is so cool! Holy....the word itself has always brought a a quite awe..Previously I never could grasp myself as "holy" other than in reference to treat the body as a holy temple. I will now spend time with Jesus inprayer with the scripture, "be holy, for I am holy..."
Well..I enjoyed the entire study on Levitcus. I thought it interesting that Nadub and Abihu where drunk with alcohol when they where burned to death. I liked learning about the some of the fesivals the Israelits had, what they celebrated and the importance. God really spoke to me most while learning what it really means to be Holy. This is a great study.
I liked Leviticus. Before this study I didn't have a true grasp on what being holy means. I actually thought it quite pretentious to even want to try and achieve holiness.
In my own experiences this word "holy" can be used in a negative way to describe Christians. One person I knew often phrased the term "holy rollers" to describe Christians that wear their faith on their sleeve.
So the BIG thing I learned is that God calls us to be holy and that being holy is a positive thing! :)
No. Praise God he is who he says he is and that we can trust and know he will take care of us even when we mess up and are not obedient. As we draw close to him and become more like him, we will know the relationship he so desires is real and personal.
Blog question: I learned....How Aaron's two sons were killed by God for their disobedience(doing their own thing).
How many times holy is mentioned in the book of Leviticus (152)
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