Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Holiness

For anyone who has ever read through Leviticus, I'm sure you can empathize with my enthusiastic WHEW - glad to be finished with that book! With so many details and instructions for sacrifices and cleansing given to Moses, it makes you wonder how he ever kept them straight (let along communicate them to over a million people). Do you think every Israelite knew these very specific ordinances when it came to sacrifices and cleansing? Makes you wonder with how many times they kept disobeying God...

My thought for today is this: Do you ever stop and think about who God really is? The God we worship today is the very same God who gave these instructions to Israel, that they might "be holy" as our Lord God is holy. To deter even a little bit from these instructions often meant death - or at best, being cut off from their people. And God did not withold punishment! Despite my neat-freakishness and OCDs when it comes to cleaning, chances are at some point I might not get all the mildew out of our bathroom (the ceiling is quite bad, actually). And to think that God gives such specific instructions even for the removal of mildew! CRAZY!

Fortunately for believers today we don't have to sacrifice countless animals for atonement of our sins, or adhere to very strict regulations regarding skin diseases and cleanliness (praise the Lord for Walgreens and Lysol!). But God still expects - and commands - the same holiness in our lives as He did for the Israelites. And we should be living holy lives, glorifying God and obeying Him in all that we say and do. Granted, there are a lot of differences between now and the time of the Israelites, but God is still the same - loving, patient, and above all holy. Can we say the same for our own lives?

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