Holy, Holy, Holy

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Scripture

Do not treat my name as if it were not holy. The people of Israel must recognize me as the holy God. I am the Lord. I make you holy.

~Leviticus 22:32, NIrV

Quote

Before God can be anything else: He is first and foremost holy.

~Ya’akov

If God is not holy, He is not good: if He is not good, He is evil and if He was evil He would self-destruct. Everything good stems from the fact that He is holy. As I read through the NIrV, I am noticing the constant attention given to treating God’s name as holy. The word ‘holy’ shows up three times in Leviticus 22:32 in the NIrV. I had not seen this before so I brought the verse up on Blue Letter Bible and literally we have qodesh {Holy} used once and qadash {hallowed} used twice. I have always struggled with the word ‘hallowed,’ what on earth does it mean. It means to be set apart, to be treated in a distinct and different way than ordinary. The vessels [cups and bowls] used in the Tabernacle were hallowed, set a part for special use. Once they were set apart, they were no longer common or ordinary. They were treated with more respect than the common. God is set apart. He is not common or ordinary. He is distinct, different and He should never be treated as common. We do not treat His name like it was just an ordinary common name. It is paramount that we recognize the fact that God is holy. There will not be any fear, awe, respect, worship or even a relationship until we acknowledge that God is holy.

One other thing: note God’s plan or intention–“I make you holy.” Holiness is God’s doing. If you are holy, God made you holy, you cannot get there on your own. Unfortunately some folks have the cart before the horse, they think holiness is the way to Christ but it’s just the other way around, CHRIST IS THE WAY TO HOLINESS. We had a great LCBS last Sunday on Romans six which is one of my favorite passages but one that I do not fully understand. Christ death on the cross has liberated us from the power of sin, not the presence, not yet but the power. 

6 We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin.
7 For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin.
Whereas it is true that Jesus death broke sins grasp on us, we still have the opportunity and the tendency to sin. Sin comes natural for us. Romans 6:12 is the key to understanding the passage,  Do not let sin control the way you live; do not give in to sinful desires. Sin will still control us if we let it but it is no longer our master. It was the plague of death that broke the power of Pharaoh over the Israelites yet many of the Israelites continued to act like slaves even after seeing his dead body float in the Red Sea. The same thing happened in this country when the slaves were declared free.
Christ has set us free from the power of sin, we must learn to exercise that freedom. We can rebuke sin in the name of Jesus: we can say boldly, “I don’t have to please you. You have no authority over me. Christ has set me free from your power so begone.”

Beautiful day yesterday and I enjoyed it. I came up with this bright idea of digging my septic tank hole by hand. Thought the exercise would do me good. The first two feet went fine and then we hit mud and clay. It will not come off the shovels. Ryder loves to dig but he and I had to give up, water came seeping up and when I came in last night, we had a well, about 6 inches of water in the bottom.

Don’t forget, we go to the TOP OF THE RIVER Sunday evening. We all need something to look forward to: Mandy has been looking forward to her CRUISE for months and I am looking forward to the TOP OF THE RIVER. I might take my grandsons on a cruise. I’ve got some grandsons and a grandson in law that will bankrupt the Cruise Line. Tyler will eat $395 worth of food in two days and Seth and Big L are not far behind.

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