Who is Holy?

Weekday Word w/ Pastor Eric July 17, 2023

1 Peter 1:13-16, CEB – Therefore, once you have your minds ready for action and you are thinking clearly, place your hope completely on the grace that will be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed.  Don’t be conformed to your former desires, those that shaped you when you were ignorant. But, as obedient children, you must be holy in every aspect of your lives, just as the one who called you is holy. It is written, You will be holy, because I am holy.

The last sentence of the passage above is a quote of Leviticus 19:2.  When the words are spoken in Leviticus, they are part of a charge that God gives to Moses to make to the people of Israel; they are to be a set-apart people whose purpose is to carry out God’s plan for the world.  Peter is now applying those same words to the gentile Christians to whom he writes.  God’s chosen vessels are now not just the Hebrew people, but all people who put their trust in Christ.  That’s you and me as well.

                “You will be holy, because I am holy.”  I don’t know about you, but I still struggle with the idea of being holy.  When I think of the word “holy,” I think of angels, monks in the desert, and other “holy” types that are not me.  I think of people who seem to be above the rough and tumble of everyday life.  Much of our culture tends to reinforce this idea of holiness – a life that only gurus that live in a cave on top of a mountain can achieve. 

                This is not what Peter is calling us to be.  Remember, in Leviticus, God tells Moses to tell the people that they are to be holy.  It is not just Moses that is the holy person, but all of Israel. But in Leviticus, it is the people who do the work of holiness.  There are hundreds of instructions that they are to follow to keep themselves ritually pure from contaminating themselves.  Being holy is to follow all of these instructions.   However, Peter is contending that Jesus has changed all that.  Instead of us striving to follow endless rules so that we might share in the purity and holiness of God, through Jesus, we now have the holiness and purity of God being shared with us.  That is what is happening when Jesus touches and spends time unclean people.  He transforms them by offering the holiness of God to them.  Holiness is not an accomplishment; it is a gift.

                However, like a wrapped gift on your birthday, you have to unwrap it to enjoy it.   You have to believe that it is a gift that is worth opening.  You have to want to be made holy and you have to trust that God can and will do it in you.  When we do, something amazing happens.  Our lives change in ways we never imagined.  We begin to see ourselves participating in the greater purposes of God.  We are blessed, but even more fulfilling, we begin to see others being blessed through us.  It’s a humbling experience because we know we can’t take any credit for it.  God did it.  The unique goodness and blessing of God has flowed through our lives and poured out onto others.  

                My prayer is that you recognize this process in your life.  For me, I sometimes notice that changes I have been striving to make in my own life for years just seem to happen naturally after I had given up the striving.  Someone tells me how something I did blessed them when that “something I did” was unknown to me.  There is a breakthrough in a relationship that I thought was hopelessly damaged.  These serendipitous moments are evidence of God’s holiness seeping into me and spilling over onto others.  The irony is that such experiences actually cause me to want to cooperate and even strive for greater holiness.   They make me want to be a better man.  The good news is that God is already on the case.

Question:  What evidence do you notice in your own life that God is doing something in you or through you that you have been unable to do yourself?

Prayer:  Holy God, make us holy as you are holy.  Pour so much goodness and blessing out that it spills onto people around us.  Amen.

Prayer Focus:  Pray for countries torn by war and violence

Song:  Take My life/ Holiness – Scott Underwoodhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHeEytocJVY