Are You Treating “Holy” Things As “Common”?

Are You Treating “Holy” Things As “Common”?

Preacher Huijun - 2 July 2022

Weekend Devotion: Are You Treating "Holy" Things As "Common"?

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Dear all, why do you think some Christians are unhappy, despite being saved by the most gracious and delightful God? That is because something still stands between them and God. And the culprit is sin. Sin, unholiness, and uncleanness drive a wedge between us and the Holy God. Being holy means to be “set apart”, “separate” and “different”. Thus, as He saves us, the Holy God also calls us to a set apart life, separated from any form of defilement by sin and evil.

 

God will not tolerate what is holy to be made common (profaned).

1) God’s people must be taught how to distinguish between the holy and the common.

This is one important thing God solemnly instructed His priests to teach His people, as written in (Eze 44:23): They are to teach my people the difference between the holy and the common and show them how to distinguish between the unclean and the clean. (In Lev 10:10-11 too). The rationale is once something has been set aside for holy use, it cannot be used again for common purpose. Otherwise, that will be considered a profanity in the eyes of God. The meaning of “profane” is “to show contempt or irreverence for sacred things”, “make common”, or “secular”. So holy things are what have been set apart for God, while common things are unconsecrated, secular things. Although the context of (Eze 44) talks about the setting apart of persons who were allowed to enter God’s holy sanctuary, the consecrated attire the priests were to wear when they entered the inner temple court, and so on, we must understand that we as children of God are also set apart for Him. Therefore, our lives and worship are also to be holy and not defiled in any way by any unclean thing.

 

2) God cannot tolerate the slightest uncleanness.

(Eze 22:26) tells us that God’s people failed to differentiate between the holy and the common, her priests do violence to my law and profane my holy things; they do not distinguish between the holy and the common; they teach that there is no difference between the unclean and the clean; and they shut their eyes to the keeping of my Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them. Thus, God’s judgment would fall on them, to put an end to their uncleanness (Eze 22:15).

And God not just emphasized this in the Old Testament, but even in the New Testament, when Jesus Himself came to earth, He also cleansed God’s temple of defilement. This was such a significant act that it was recorded in all the 4 Gospels (Mt 21:12–17, Mk 11:15–19, Lk 19:45–48, Jn 2:13–16>. In (Mt 21), we read: 12 Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”

Why was Jesus so angry? Because He gave up His life to redeem sinners not for sinners to remain secular and still entrapped by sin. He was so committed to making His people righteous and holy (Ep 5:25-27) that He could even sacrifice His life. Thus, when He saw the house of God not filled with prayers but with impurity, greed, and noises of money-loving merchants, He must purge these out from God’s holy temple.

 

God’s people get into dire danger when they stop distinguishing between the unclean and the clean.

This was what happened to the Israelites during Ezekiel’s time. And A.W. Tozer also said that Christians today “have learned to live with unholiness and have come to look upon it as the natural and expected thing.” In other words, we too do not distinguish the holy from the common, the clean from the unclean. Now this is worrying. When there is no clear distinction between the holy and the common, we lose the fear for God, lose sight of God’s purpose for our lives, and lose the godly Christian values. As a result, we become loose in our living, we view sin as harmless and common, even failing to recognize sin as sinful. With that, we are just waiting for God’s righteous discipline to fall upon us.

 

Therefore, we must constantly purify ourselves.

The Bible tells us that we are God’s temple and God’s Spirit dwells in our midst. God’s temple is sacred, and we together with fellow believers are that temple <1 Co 3:16-17>. The problem is, though we are sacred and set apart for God, we are so easily defiled by pride, greed, lust, idolatry, grumbling, jealousy, hatred, and so on. So how can we still stand before the holy God?

1) Cleanse and purify ourselves with the blood of Christ.

Though our lives are not without sin, God says, “the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” and “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn 1:7b, 9). If we humbly repent before God, He promises to cleanse us.

 

2) Purge uncleanness from our lives.

Particularly, we need to purge our eyes from looking at evil and worthless things (Ps 119:37). If we fix our eyes on the wrong things, we will be led astray. So where we set our gaze on is very important. Even if we accidentally set eyes on the wrong things, quickly look pass them and not dwell on them and be tempted. We also need to ask God to examine our hearts to check for any sin that has sneaked into our lives. Of course, having known which sins are binding us, we must pray for the power of Holy Spirit to help us drive sin out of our lives.

 

3) Besides purifying ourselves from uncleanness, we also need to appreciate what is pure and holy.

Thus, we can ask God to give us a new love for what is right, beautiful and holy in His sight. Loving holiness more will make it easier for us to shun evil.

 

When cleansing is done, wonderful things follow.

After Jesus cleansed the temple from things that defile, we read that “The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them” (Mt 21:14). So see, when unholy things are cleansed from God’s temple, it became a place of comfort and joy for His people. Perhaps the blind and the lame had come to the temple before, but that temple was full of many other “common and unholy” things that they couldn’t meet the holy God. But once the temple was cleansed from things that distract, they could see Jesus and be healed. Likewise for our lives, when it is full of unclean and unholy things, we cannot see and hear God properly. But when we purify our lives, we can meet God once again and be delighted in His holy love. So cleansing may be harsh for those who do not love God, like the merchants in the temple, but it will bring relief and joy to true seekers and children of God. So pray that we can discern and live out the differences between holy and common, clean and unclean!

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Preacher Hui Jun
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Huijun serves as Secretary of The Blessed RUN Ministries. She is also the Preacher at The Life Church and Missions (Singapore). She graduated from Singapore Bible College and currently lives in Singapore with her husband, Chengji.

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