A Call to Holiness

As you probably know if you’ve been reading the blog recently, I’ve been reading through Deuteronomy. Now there are some crazy laws and regulations that God set out for His people. Some I still wish we had today, others I’m glad we don’t. Here is just a sample:

Deut. 21: 20,21, “They (the parents) shall say to the elders, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death.”

Deut. 24: 5, “If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married.”

God wanted His people to be different. Not freaky weird different, but just not like everyone else. There were rules about clothes and farming. There were rules about how to relate to each other and how to relate to Him. While the nations around them were sacrificing their children to the gods, God said, “NO! Don’t do such a detestable thing.”

So what does holiness look like today. God calls His people to be different. He calls us to not be like the “nations” around us, to not follow in the same footsteps that they do. Our path will look different. The things we do should look different, God has called us away from a path of destruction and to a path of abundant life.

Now here is our problem, we get so tied into holiness that we lose all contact with people far from God (this can turn into legalism). We can also throw holiness out the window and draw very close to those far from God (this can turn to heodonism). So here is the balance, to become so much like God that you reflect His glory while maintaining contact with those whom He loves that don’t yet love Him. When we begin to understand this, we will begin to understand the mission of Jesus. “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” (John 5:19, NIV)

~ by mikefoster on June 30, 2009.