Can I speak for everyone? “Wow!”
Can I ask this question on behalf of everyone? “How in the world…?”
When we consider the perfect holiness of God, it’s beyond human comprehension. We only have weak adjectives to describe it: purity, sinless, cleanliness, perfection, glorious, impervious, infallible, just to name a few.
We arrive at this conclusion: No perfect word exists to describe the quality of God’s holiness. Therefore, we shrug, excusing our failure in coming up with the perfect description of His holiness. We then go on with our lives enjoying pizza, watching action movies and buying new shoes. Intuitively, we know we can’t measure up, so why bother?
Yet, as Believers, we can’t ignore the commandment found in Leviticus 11:44: “For I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am holy.”
How can it ever be possible I would be holy because God is holy? I know plenty of words to describe my attempts at holiness: imperfect, failure, and sorta okay, to name a few. Maybe I attained holiness on July 16, 1998, for ten seconds before it passed?
Suppose God said, “Go shopping because I go shopping.” He would undoubtedly shop at House of Bijan while I would have to shop at Dollar Tree. Zero comparison.
It’s like God is saying, “Create the universe as I created the universe.” How? Out of Legos? Doesn’t quite compare, does it.
In Exodus 33:20, God said this to Moses: “But He said, ‘You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live.’ “ The reason is simple. God is perfectly holy, and Moses is a sinful man. The two cannot mesh peacefully.
Suppose the answer lay in obeying God’s commandments. Just between Genesis and Deuteronomy there are over 600 commandments. The New Testament contains around 800 commandments. If a person perfectly obeyed all 1400 commandments seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day for all the days of his life, he would be holy. He might also have a headache from the stress.
The problem is obvious. The person has as much chance succeeding at this as he has hitchhiking through the Milky Way. But even if he obeys 1399, yet breaks one commandment for only a few seconds, he has failed completely in being holy as God is holy.
Yet Jesus tells us to take on His yoke because His yoke is easy and His burdens are light (Matthew 11:30). We’re tempted to fire back, “Have you seen these 1400 commandments? Not exactly easy, not exactly light!”
One word provides the solution: Sanctification. One person makes it happen: Jesus
Because Jesus takes all our sins upon Himself, creating a massive overhaul of our lives through His forgiveness, we are declared sanctified. God remembers our sins no more, making us holy in an eternally secure, positional way.
But as we enjoy our new state of holiness, we consider Jesus’ words: “Take my yoke upon you…for my yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Our minds flashback to those 1400 commandments. A lump grows in our throats.
Then disappears. Because something is different within us. Not only are our hearts healed by the power of His salvation bringing His holy sanctification, but they’ve been ignited. We finally see the commandments in true light. God’s commandments aren’t meant to tie us down, but to free us to undertake two matchless crusades—loving our God with all our heart, soul, mind and body and, secondly, loving others as much as we love ourselves. All of His commandments spring forth from those two life-building commandments.
Our relationship with Him mushrooms as His love pours down upon us, soaking us with His joy, peace and goodness. We rest in His faithfulness to us and His patience towards us. We find ourselves lovinng Him more and more, even yearning for the day when we meet Him in person.
Our relationships with others blossom like spring gardens. We love our spouses and our children in better ways than we’ve ever loved them before.
Our love sprinkles everywhere upon friends, neighbors, co-workers—amazingly, even to our enemies. Those relationships become cemented in selfless love. Broken relationships are healed.
We see the hurting, the desolate, the lost, and the lonely in a new light. Our love possesses a boundless energy, motivating us to step compassionately into their lives.
If you call yourself a Believer, made holy by your Savior, listen to how Isaiah 58:11 describes your position: “And the Lord will continually guide you, and satisfy your desire in scorched places, and give strength to your bones;” He, in truth, has become your living oasis. Then comes an amazing result: “And you will be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.” You, in truth, have become a living oasis for everyone who crosses your path.
If I dared to create a new creed, reflecting God’s ardent desire for us Believers, it would be, “Be an oasis as I am an oasis.” What a superb result of taking on the easy yoke of Jesus.