Holiness & a Higher View of God November 12, 2009

Numbers 9:  Holiness

Holiness November 3, 2009

First of all, every Monday I’m reminded of how much I need to get on a good schedule even on the weekends so that I can get up and have my quiet time.  Even though weekends are supposed to be our restful times, I can’t seem to make time either Saturday or Sunday to sit down and have a quiet time.  I need to work on that.

On a different note … Today I got to Numbers 6.  It struck me that throughout the beginning of Numbers, God shows how serious He is about our holiness and about the vows we make before Him.  We’re told that Aaron’s sons had to go into the tabernacle and carefully cover all of the articles of the sanctuary before the Levites who were assigned to carry them could touch them — or else they would die.  Not be slapped on the wrist, not reprimanded — die.  Then as God gives the commands for the person under the Nazirite vow, He shows how serious of a thing it is for a person to take a vow before the Lord.  So much so that if the person’s parent or sibling dies, they couldn’t be there because they would be defiled during their time of separation.  So much so that if someone all of a sudden died beside them, they would have to offer a bunch of sacrifices and go through a big ordeal to be absolved from being defiled during their time of separation, and the time that they had served under the vow would be considered null and void even at that.  Wow.

How flippant we are about holiness.  How easily we tell God we’re going to do things and how easily we back out or even just forget.  We think “God wouldn’t really expect me to go through with this since such and such came up.”  Would He not?  We’re also so quick to take into our bodies and minds things that are unholy without giving it a second thought a lot of times.  If we do even notice that we’re defiling ourselves, we think “it’s no big deal because after all God knows we’re humans; He doesn’t expect us to be perfect.”  He does.  That’s true.  But it’s not for nothing that over and over in the Old Testament and New He tells us to be holy because He is Holy.  I don’t think He was kidding or exaggerating.  I think He was serious.  Yes, He knows we will mess up.  Yes, He forgives us each and every time.  But I also think it grieves His heart that we, His children, are so unconcerned about something that He makes clear is so very important to Him.  The God of the Old Testament is the God of now.  He hasn’t changed.  He hasn’t lowered His standards.  He still expects us to live holy lives before Him.  We need to … I know I do … take the idea of holiness and our vows before God much more seriously.

God, please soften my heart to make me much more sensitive to the promptings of Your Holy Spirit.  Please help me to recognize the areas of uncleanness that are in my life.  Please teach me to take much more seriously my “set-apartness”.  And please forgive me for the attitude I have had about holiness.  Forgive me for grieving You.