wholly holy | Devotionary

Wholly Holy.

Deuteronomy 17-18, John 18

You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. – Deuteronomy 18:13 ESV

God wanted His people to be holy. He demanded that they be blameless. The Hebrew word translated as blameless is tamiym and it means “entire, whole or complete.” It is a word that carries the idea of moral integrity. In Latin, it is the word, integer, and it means “untouched, undivided, whole.” When we read the word, blameless, we tend to think of perfection or perfectness. But the real idea behind the word is that of wholeness. It is the same word used by God in His address to Abraham found in Genesis 17:1: “When Abram was ninety-nine years old the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless’”. God was not expecting Abraham to live in perfection or without sin, but He was expecting Abraham to live a life that was wholly and completely dedicated to God. Every area of his life was to be lived out in full view of God. No compartmentalization. No hidden areas. He was to “walk before” God. The Hebrew word is halak and it means “to walk back and forth; to walk about; to live out one’s life.” God expected Abraham to live his entire life in full view of the gaze of God, knowing that God would see every area of His life. Nothing was hidden from God. The Israelites, descendants of Abraham, and recipients of the promises made to him, were to live their lives in the same way. They were to be blameless, whole and complete. There was to be no hidden areas in their lives, where they attempted to hide their actions from God. The laws of God were intended to cover every area of life. They were comprehensive and complete. Nothing was left to the imagination. A life lived in relationship with God was to be a life that was wholly and completely impacted by His presence, power and will.

What does this passage reveal about God?

God had already told the people of Israel, “You must love the Lord your God with your whole mind,your whole being, and all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:5 ESV). This was the great Shema. God was telling them that He expected their love for Him to be comprehensive and complete. It was to come from their whole mind, their whole being, and their whole strength. Their love for God was to encompass their entire life – emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, and physically. Jesus said of the religious leaders of His day, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me” (Matthew 15:8 ESV). He was quoting from the writings of Isaiah, the prophet, who had recorded the words of God against the people of Israel. God does not want lip-service. He doesn’t want His followers to simply go through the motions. The worship of God is to be holistic and complete. It is to be comprehensive and all-encompassing of every area of life. We see this modeled in the life of Jesus. His love for His Father was comprehensive. It was evident in every area of His life. His desire to do the will of His Father, even though it involved His own death, was an expression of His love. He held nothing back. Jesus was arrested, falsely accused and forced to undergo a series of trials on trumped up charges. He was subjected to all kinds of abuse and accusations. Even Pilate said, “I find no fault in him” (John 18:38 ESV). He was blameless. He was obedient. He was simply doing what His Father had called Him to do. And it was for His dedication to the will of God that He would die. Rather than preserve His own life, He willingly sacrificed it, out of love for the Father.

What does this passage reveal about man?

We are the kings of compartmentalization. We are constantly trying to keep back certain areas of our lives over which we can maintain control. We give God portions of our lives, but withhold other areas for our own use. Our work can easily become our private domain, somehow separated from our “spiritual” lives. Our finances can become our personal arena over which we alone sit as masters. We can so easily give the appearance that we are dedicate to and in love with God, while we reserve certain aspects of our lives for our own use. Our thought lives remain ours to control. Our time becomes ours to use as we see fit. Our social lives become separated from our spiritual lives. And yet, God has called us to live lives that are holy and blameless, completely and wholly dedicated to Him.

At one point in His earthly ministry, Jesus was approached by a Jewish lawyer who asked Him how he could inherit eternal life. Jesus, knowing the man was an expert in the law of Moses, asked him what he thought the law said about it. The man responded, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27 ESV). Jesus told the man, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live” (Luke 10:28 ESV). What Jesus knew was that it was going to be impossible for the lawyer to “do this.” He would find it impossible to love God wholly and completely. He would discover that his inability to love others as God intended would be a stumbling block in his attempt to love God. No man can live blamelessly or wholly dedicated to God apart from the saving work of Jesus Christ. He alone makes it possible for us to stand before God wholly holy. It was the death of Jesus that cancelled our debt to God and transferred the righteousness of Christ to our account. It is what is often referred to as the Great Exchange. “But people are counted as righteous, not because of their work, but because of their faith in God who forgives sinners” (Romans 4:5 NLT). My sin for His righteousness. Because of what Jesus accomplished on the cross on my behalf, I stand before God as wholly holy.

How would I apply what I’ve read to my own life?

But while I am positionally holy before God, there is a need for me to live practically holy before Him all the days of my life. I must continue to learn to live in obedience to His will, not out of some misguided attempt to score brownie points with God, or earn His favor, but out of love for Him. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15 ESV). There is an expectation on each of us as Christ-followers to live obediently within the will of God, submitted to His Spirit and guided by His Word. We are to model our lives after Christ, We are to “have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had” (Philippians 2:5 NLT). At attitude of servanthood, submission, humility and obedience to the will of God. My entire life is to be lived out before God, with nothing held back, no parts hidden or compartmentalized. I have the Spirit of God within me who makes it possible for me to live wholly holy. Not perfectly, but increasingly more willingly submitted to God’s will for my life as His child. It is a process. It takes time. It is what is often referred to as sanctification, the ongoing transformation of my entire life into the likeness of Christ Himself. And there is a day coming when we will be like Him. “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1 John 3:2-3 ESV). The time is coming when we will be perfectly holy and complete. In the meantime, we are to maintain that as our goal. We are to strive towards holiness in every area of our lives. We are to love God with our whole mind, our whole being and every ounce of our physical strength – striving to be wholly holy – with the Spirit’s help.

Father, I want to be wholly holy. I know it is impossible in this life, but it must be my goal. It must be my heart’s desire. I also realize I can’t do it on my own. I must rely upon the Holy Spirit’s help and depend upon His power to make it possible. Continue to reveal to me my own shortcomings and inadequacies and remind me of my constant need for Your help to live the life You’ve called me to live. Amen

Ken Miller
Grow Pastor & Minister to Men
kenm@christchapelbc.org

Wholly Holy.

Leviticus 19-20, Luke 11

You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine. – Leviticus 20:26 ESV

Seventeen times in these two chapters God reminded His people that, “I am the Lord your God.” He was to be their King, Lord, Judge and God. He had chosen them and set them apart as His own, and He expected their lives to reflect their unique standing as the people of God. God had made it clear when He said, “I am the Lord your God, who has separated you from the peoples” (Leviticus 20:24 ESV). He commanded them to keep all His statutes and rules, “that the land where I am bringing you may not vomit you out. And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation that I am driving out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I detested them” (Leviticus 20:22-23 ESV).

The holiness or separateness of God’s people was to be more than ceremonial. This wasn’t to be some kind of divine designation with no practical outcome. Everything about the book of Leviticus and the law of God was practical and prescriptive. God was giving them His rules for living as His people, and they were comprehensive and conclusive. There was no room for negotiation or interpretation. Repeatedly, God told them, “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2 ESV). He was the standard.

What does this passage reveal about God?

God expected the holiness of His people to show up in every area of their lives. So in that sense, it was a kind of whole-iness. In essence, holiness is the imitation of God and His character. His holiness is holistic in nature. In fact, holiness is His nature. It is the expression of His very being. So true holiness in human beings should be an outward expression of who we truly are as children of God. Our actions should flow from our character as the adopted children of God. All throughout these two chapters, God rehearses His rules for righteous conduct. He gives them practical, everyday life applications of the principle of holiness. They were to honor their parents, keep His sabbath, provide for the poor, refrain from stealing, practice justice, refuse to hate one another, refrain from sexual sin, treat the elderly with respect, deal with strangers the same way they would friends, and maintain ethical standards in all their business dealings. God was demanding that they NOT act like the nations who were currently occupying the land He was giving them. The character of those people was by nature, godless and sinful. They had few, if any, rules to guide and guard their lives. Any regulations to which they submitted were man-made and easily altered or ignored. The nations living in the land of Canaan were guilty of gross misconduct and a godless lifestyle that illustrated the power that sin had over their lives. But God wanted His people to live differently. He wanted them to live according to a higher, greater standard. So He commanded them to “consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 20:7 ESV).

What does this passage reveal about man?

Adultery, dishonesty, injustice, hatred, prejudice, stealing, lying, idolatry, murder, and selfishness. These are just a few of the characteristics that make up the nature of man in the days of Moses. And not much has changed over the centuries. Even in the days of Jesus, the same problems were rampant, even among those who were considered the spiritually elite. Jesus referred to them as “an evil generation” (Luke 11:29 ESV). Even their religious leaders were marked by what appeared to be outward conformance to the laws of God, but their inward condition was far from acceptable to God. Jesus accused them of cleansing “the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness” (Luke 11:39 ESV). He let them know that the inner condition of their hearts was the real problem. He compared them to unmarked graves, hidden from view, and full of all kinds of impurity and death. No one could see what was going on inside their hearts and, therefore, they contaminated all those around them with their sinful dispositions masquerading as righteous behavior. These men had turned everything into just a set of rules to be kept. They had missed the whole point of wholly holiness. Which is why Jesus said of them, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me” (Matthew 15:8 ESV). He was quoting from the prophet Isaiah, and indicating that nothing had really changed over the years. The people of His day suffered from the same problem as their ancestors.

How would I apply what I’ve read to my own life?

There is a desperate need for our holiness to be practical and visible in this world. Not just as a show, but as a reflection of what God has done and is doing in our lives. Unlike the Jews in Moses’ day, we have been given the Holy Spirit to empower us for living lives of holiness. He makes it possible for us to live in obedience to God’s righteous requirements. We are not left to our own devices and dependent upon our own self-effort. We truly can live holy lives because we have the Holy Spirit of God living within us. In Luke’s gospel, he records Jesus saying, “No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a basket, but on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light. Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness. Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light” (Luke 11:33-36 ESV). His point appears to be the acceptance of Himself as the light of the world. In this context, the eye is the portal to the soul. A good eye, allows all the light to enter in, exposing darkness and illuminating the entire body from within. The good eye represents the ability to see light and comprehend truth. Which is why, on another occasion, Jesus referred to the Pharisees as “blind guides.” Jesus refers to the whole body being full of light, having no part in darkness. He says, “it will be wholly bright.” The picture is one of completeness, wholeness, and comprehensiveness. This is not about outward illumination, but total transformation of the person’s being. That is what holiness is to be. It is a total renovation of the inner character that shows up in our outward actions and attitudes. Actions that stem from reformed character are always more effective and lasting. They lack the hypocrisy and shallowness that come with self-motivated attempts at behavioral conformity. We can only ACT righteous for so long. God wants to make us righteous in the inside, through the transformative power of the Holy Spirit. Then our outward behavior will mirror our inner character, and we will be “wholly bright.”

Father, it is far too easy to fake holiness. But it never lasts. We can try and act like we are righteous, but it won’t be long until we are exposed for what we really are. I want my actions to be a true reflection of what You are doing in my inner being through the power of Your Holy Spirit. I want my outer man to flow from the transformation You are bringing about in my inner man. So that I might be practically holy in all that I do and say. Amen

Ken Miller
Grow Pastor & Minister to Men
kenm@christchapelbc.org