Being Holy: Separated Series

When I was a kid, I had lots of toys. I had little green plastic army men, a plastic fort that I could put together, Little People, GI Joes, and others. These were pretty common, ordinary toys to me that were stuffed in a toy box with comics and cards. But my special, favorite toys, I kept in a different box. My Evel Kneivel motorcycle and figure were there. I kept my Star Trek playset in there, too. And, my Levi’s denim boy doll had a special place on my bed. Since these items were very special to me, I had them separated.

We as Christians should have a desire to live holy. We have talked about how living holy means having the right type of repentance. We have also talked about how we must be connected with God in Bible study and prayer to move on to holiness. Another element of striving for holiness is realizing how special we are to God, and working toward being separated from the common.

SEPARATED TO GOD

God claimed the Israelites as a separate people for His own. “For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth” (Deut. 7:6). “For you are a holy people, who belong to the LORD your God. Of all the people on earth, the LORD your God has chosen you to be his own special treasure.” (Lev. 20:26). They were holy because they were possessed by the holy God, and therefore separated from the common and ordinary.

In writing to the Corinthian church, Paul points out that “Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, 20 for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.” (1 Cor. 6:19,20).

At the moment of the new birth, you are made holy. You enter into a personal relationship with God and become His possession. You are no longer your own. You are to glorify Him in all you do by following His instructions. Holiness is to characterize the believer’s life each moment of each day.

SEPARATED FROM THE COMMON

To be holy one must be separated from the common (ordinary)

Here we learn the important concept that God often requires his people to separate from things not necessarily sinful, just things that if purged from the life will strengthen the Christian’s walk with God.

The terms “clean” and “unclean” have nothing to do with cleanliness. They are religious categories designed to emphasize to Israel that God has a standard of moral and ethical right and wrong that is as clearly distinguishable as the categories of clean and unclean. God gave the Israelites food laws, health issues, etc. These were not only to instruct them to be separated from the common, but for their well being, too.

One of the major charges God made against the priesthood, as Israel began to backslide was, “Your priests have violated my instructions and defiled my holy things. They make no distinction between what is holy and what is not. And they do not teach my people the difference between what is ceremonially clean and unclean. They disregard my Sabbath days so that I am dishonored among them.” (Ezekiel 22:26).

The same problem exists today. Carefulness to separate from common things which are not inherently sinful, just because God has called for this personal separation, is becoming rare. If we don’t faithfully follow God’s gentle promptings to separate from the non-sinful “common” because we and others’ declare, “There is nothing wrong with it!” we forfeit the delight of His presence and are soon in confusion.

The cure for this lack of sensitivity to God’s call to be holy and the ability to respond to His gentle promptings to separate from things that are not inherently sinful, according to the writer of Hebrews, is found when Christians press on to entire sanctification.

Without entire sanctification, Christians are destined to be in the group the writer of Hebrews was talking about in Hebrews 5:12-6:1: You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God’s word. You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food. 13 For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn’t know how to do what is right. 14 Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong. So let us stop going over the basic teachings about Christ again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding. Surely we don’t need to start again with the fundamental importance of repenting from evil deeds and placing our faith in God.