Resources/Articles
Being Tied to God
“Ye shall be holy;
for I Jehovah your God am holy.”
Leviticus 19:2
Every summer at the camp my wife and I have the blessing to direct. we have a special Bible class for the seniors. My wife teaches a class for the girls, and I teach a class for the boys. In both classes we have a list of five questions we ask. One particular question is: List three challenges you face as a young man/woman.
In the last three years, the answers to that question - from both boys and girls - include: Clean thoughts, pure speech/language, modest clothes, sexual purity, and lust. It is obvious the desire each one has from the answers given. With their concerns about purity, holiness appears to be their greatest interest. They are not swinging toward being immoral or unholy. They are wanting to be better examples, and they understand holiness is a great part of that.
There are young people living among us who are not interested in drugs, indecency, or immoral acts. They have witnessed enough of it at home or school, in movies and society. They are not drawn to getting away with anything. They are interested in being tied to God.
Divine instructions to holiness are not given to keep you out of trouble. Holiness is a life. It is a life tying us to the One who IS holy. This is the way God presented Himself and His laws of purity to Israel in Leviticus 11:44-45: “For I am Jehovah your God: sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy; for I am holy...” The same instruction is echoed to Christians in 1 Peter 1:16. Holiness in 1 Peter comes with an additional condition: “...if ye call on Him as Father...” Our desire to call upon God as our Father connects to His character as holy. This means our desire to be His children comes with the willingness to “be holy” as He is holy.
As God’s children, we are tied to our Father not only as one created in His image, but as one to emulate His character of holiness in our lives always. Imagine the text saying, “Be ye holy most of the time as your heavenly Father is holy.” What would we do with that? Can you imagine the junk we could put into five percent of our lives? Being holy when we feel it is convenient or on certain days of the week, like Sunday, are not an option. God asked Israel to be holy all the time. God commands our holiness all the time, because it keeps us tied to heaven and not to the world.
Some may think the idea of holiness is “too much” for a world of hypocrisy, immorality, and wickedness. There is no such thing as being “too holy,” “too dedicated,” “too committed,” or spending “too much” time praying, studying, or worshiping. The passage says “be holy” by the standard and measurement of holiness - GOD. This world needs not only the command but also lives full of holiness to know how life should be lived.
Being holy as God is holy ties us to God with something as simple as our worship. Leviticus 10:3 says, “I will be sanctified in them that come nigh to Me, and before all the people I will be glorified.” What prompted this message was the lack of respect by Nadab and Abihu by offering a strange sacrifice to God (vv. 1-2) and subsequently being struck dead by their unholiness. Holiness is not only an offering of a sincere spirit of reverence. It involves the WAY God has chosen for us to worship Him, not what we deem best or feel most comfortable doing. Our tie to God is a worship “in spirit and truth” (John 4:23-24). Unless those two parts of our worship to God are understood and applied, how can we say we are tied to our Holy Father?
What makes all things holy, tying us to God, is BLOOD. In both the Old and New Testaments, blood is identified as the sanctifying agent bringing us to God. “For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (Hebrews 9:13-14). “...Apart from the shedding of blood there is no remission” (Hebrews 9:22). Blood involves a sacrificial system God has assigned which brings us closer to Him.
Blood brought what was defiled and made it clean. It brought the unholy to holy. It was life for life (Leviticus 17:11). Blood from the Holy One - Jesus - brings us the opportunity to be holy. A sacrifice of blood atones for the sins of those clothed with iniquity and purifies them to be brought to God as holy.
Romans 12:1 sounds forth the command for those who desire to be holy before God: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.” This is that those young people mentioned earlier wanted to do. They wanted their lives to be pure. They understood the challenge of being holy. They knew it was their total sacrifice to God of all they had to be all God desired for them to be. Without this, they would easily yield to the temptations to be unholy and lose their spiritual and physical purity. They wanted to be tied to God. How about you?
