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Articles
Being Tied to God
Being Tied to God
“…Ye shall be holy; for I Jehovah your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2)
Every summer at the camp my wife and I have the blessing to direct, we have a special Bible class for the seniors. My wife teaches a class for the girls, and I teach a class for the boys. In both classes we have a list of five questions we ask. One particular question is: List three challenges you face as a young man/woman.
The answers to that question from both boys and girls in the last three years includes: Clean thoughts, keep my speech/language pure, modest clothes, sexual purity, and lust. It is obvious the desire each one has from the answers given. With their concern about purity, holiness appears to be their greatest interest. They are not swinging toward being immoral or unholy. They are wanting to be a better example and understand holiness is a great part of that.
There are young people living among us who are not interested in drugs, indecency, or immoral acts. They have witnessed enough of it at home, school, movies, and society. They are not drawn to getting away with anything. They are interested in being tied to God.
Divine instructions to holiness are not given to keep you out of trouble. Holiness is a life. It is a life tying us to the one who IS holy. This the way God presented Himself and His laws of purity to Israel in Leviticus 11:44,45. “For I am Jehovah your God: sanctify yourselves and be ye holy; for I am holy…” The same instruction is echoed to Christians in 1 Peter 1:16. Holiness in 1 Peter comes with an additional condition, “..if ye call on him as Father…” Our desire to call upon God as our Father connects to His character as holy. This means our desire to be His children comes with the willingness to “be holy” as He is holy.
As God’s children, we are tied to our Father not only as one created in His image, but as one to emulate His character of holiness in our life always. Imagine the text saying, “be ye holy most of the time as your heavenly Father is holy”. What we would do with that? Can you imagine the junk we could put into 5% our life? Being holy when we feel it is convenient or on certain days of the week, like Sunday, is not an option. God asked Israel to be holy all the time. God commands our holiness all the time, because it keeps us tied to heaven and not to the world.
Some may think the idea of holiness is “too much” for a world of hypocrisy, immorality, and wickedness. There is no such thing as being “too holy”, “too dedicated”, “too committed”, “too much time praying”, “too much time studying”, or “too much time worshipping”. The passage says be holy by the standard and measurement of holiness -- GOD. This world needs not only the command but also a life full of holiness to know how life should be lived. Read Romans 12:1.
This is what those young people, we mentioned earlier, wanted to do. They wanted their life to be pure. They understood the challenge of being holy. They knew it was their total sacrifice to God of all they had to be all God desired for them to be. Without this, they would easily yield to the temptations to be unholy and lose their spiritual and physical purity. They wanted to be tied to God. How about you?
