holiness – The Jesus Chick

Happy Independence Day! In West Virginia today it’s another rainy day with yet another threat of flooding in some areas that could really use a break. Please pray as clean up and restoration continues in hundreds of homes across our State. As I sit high and dry on Mt. Zion Ridge this morning my heart breaks for those in crisis, and for a country in crisis. How I wish that God’s blessings could rain down on America but I’m too conscience of where America is at morally to believe that that is a possibility today. I am forever the cockeyed optimist who will never fail to believe that God could changes hearts in heartbeat… it just scares me as to what it might take for that to happen.

Reading in Leviticus this morning of the instructions laid out to Moses and Aaron of the Levitical law for sacrifice, God’s attention to detail was apparent and serious! Nine chapters of instruction and Aaron performs a sacrifice which was so awesome that the glory of the Lord shown in such a manner that the entire congregation shouted and fell on their face. Glory to God that must have been an awesome sight! So why is it that we find in the tenth chapter that Aaron’s two sons, Nadab and Abihu are struck dead for offering a stranger fire before the Lord? What didn’t they understand? Unfortunately the same thing America doesn’t understand when it comes to receiving the blessing and protection of a Sovereign, Holy God. God’s not playing games.

Leviticus 10:10

And that ye may put difference between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean;

There’s a difference. Whatever the strange fire was that Nadab and Abihu offered wasn’t God approved. And regardless of religions and government which says some “things” are now approved, it doesn’t change the fact that God’s not in it and He’s still every bit as serious about holiness today as He was in 1400 B.C; perhaps even a little more serious being that the final sacrifice that was made was the Son of God, not a critter.

So what does holiness look like today? It’s not perfect living because our sin nature won’t allow it. It’s not offering a sacrifice in any manner or form because we can’t do anything greater than God has already done.

Simply put its saying “Lord, You are Holy. Nothing is before You or greater than You, I’m a sinner in need of grace and mercy and it is You Who offer it and I who accept it. You Lord, are enough.”

America has nothing but God. For now He still extends grace and mercy. Let us not fail to thank Him and praise Him for that today.

God… please bless America.

There are times that I read the Old Testament and it’s more than my stomach can handle. As someone who has never been able to watch scary or gory movies without the image getting seared in my mind, the Bible stories are sometimes almost as vivid. And then there are other days that although I wouldn’t have the stomach for it, I get so fed up with the wickedness of this world that I can totally understand how God could wipe out half a nation.

We find one such case of God’s wrath in the book of Numbers. In the first verse it is said that “Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab.” (vs. 1) They had begun to sacrifice and bow down to their gods, at which time God gives Moses the command to “Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun, that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel.”(vs. 4). I think God is pretty serious about sin to say the least, but there was a hero in the story that stopped God’s wrath by the name of Phinehas.

One of the children of Israel had brought into the congregation of the Lord a Midianite woman while the children of Israel were weeping at the door of the tabernacle because of the state of affairs. God had just laid the charge to slay those who had sinned in this manner against God, and this guy brings a woman into the congregation of the Lord. When Phinehas sees what happened scripture says “And when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from among the congregation, and took a javelin in his hand; And he went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly. So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel. (Vss. 7-8)

That act alone stopped the wrath of God.

And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake among them, that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy. Wherefore say, Behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace: (Vss. 10-12)

I’m not suggesting anyone go to this extreme, but oh that men would be so zealous as to stand up in the congregations of the Lord and say “Enough!” The church in so many ways has linked arms with the world, there is no longer a separation or a holiness. Sin is overlooked and embraced dependent upon “who” it is. Praise God we are now under grace, God no longer calls upon the destruction of a nation He doesn’t have too, we’re destroying ourselves.

This is a somber thought for Monday morning, but I just feel that I needed to remind myself as I go out into the world today that God expects more of me. Just because the world says it is okay does not make it so. I am a child of God, set aside for His purpose saved by His grace. If the Israelite and the Moabitish woman were cast before me today, I’m called to give them grace, not judgment. I want those I meet today to see the love and grace of almighty God in me, but I also want to remember the zealousness of Phinehas who called sin out and saved his people. I have to begin by examining my own life… The other children of Israel were weeping at the door of the church, but Phinehas zealously acted on it and saved his nation.

What can we do… stop “playing” church. Live it!

Tag: holiness

God’s Not Playing Games

To save a nation…