One Thing I Have Asked

One thing I have asked from the Lord,

that I desire (seek) to serve Him,

that I may dwell in the house of the Lord (be in His presence) all the days of my life,

to gaze on the beauty and pleasantness of the Lord (seeing His glorious face) and

to contemplate on Him in His temple.

Psalms 27:4

 

Only a pure (righteous) person, made so by God, can look at the Lord. In the Old Testament, the Israelites understood when an unrighteous person looked at God, that person would die. Moses understood this. He learned it from God when God covered Moses’ face on the mountain so he would not see His face and die. 

David expressed his greatest desire was to seek to serve the Lord. He stated one desire then expounded on it. To serve the Lord, David wanted to be with God in His house—the temple. He wanted to be where he knew the presence of the Lord resided. Why? Because in the presence of the Lord is holiness, peace, understanding, and the fulfillment of our greatest desire—to be in a right relationship with God. 

While in the house of the Lord seeking to serve Him, David could get clarity of thought with one purpose, without being pulled in the many directions a king is asked to make decisions. He could focus on God without the world pulling on him. David could hear the voice of God’s directions without clamor. That brings peace and understanding. 

Being with God and gazing on His face brings stillness, quiet, and fulfillment of our most inborn desire, to be in relationship with the Lord and to see and to serve Him.  No fear of death. No fear from the world. Just peace, joint purpose, and reverence. That’s what David meant when he wrote he wanted one thing: to seek to serve the Lord by being in His temple, gazing on Him, and contemplating Him. 

How can we serve the Lord now? Do we truly want to be in God’s presence, or do we only want His approval for what we want to do or already do. We can only truly be in God’s holy presence by being made righteous by His Son Jesus. We can feel the pull towards God and go to a quiet place seeking Him—in the forest, by the sea, in a church—but until we believe in Jesus and, thereby, are made clean from sin (be made righteous), we cannot be in the presence of God. We cannot behold the beauty of His face. His Spirit pulls us towards God with the conviction to follow Him to quiet places. Until we heed that pull and recognize and submit to God’s calling us to be in a righteous relationship with Him by believing in Jesus, we cannot see His face, only be drawn to Him. 

Following the convictions placed on your heart, the pulling of the Holy Spirit on you, and submitting yourself to God by believing in Jesus to be saved, leads you to want more than God’s approval for what you do. It leads you to do what God wants done.

So, how can you serve the Lord now? Believe in Jesus and be saved. Seek God in His quiet places; seek His face. Seek to know and do His will. Dwelling in the house of the Lord daily is being with Him like this. Seeking and being with God. Revering Him. Listening for His will and commands. Praising Him for His direction and what He has done. Going from there but not from Him to show Him through your being to the people with whom you meet that day. 

Do you go into your day without having seen God’s face? I encourage you to be with Him first so people will experience God through you. Without that time, there’s a greater chance people will only experience you not God. 

Your Acceptable Sacrifice

 

“Therefore I urge you, brothers, on account of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”

Romans 12:1 BSB

 

Fellow believers, because of the mercy and grace God gave you from His love and because it cleansed you, offer your consecrated (set apart by and for God) bodies as living sacrifices—ones revived, cleansed, and given of your free will because of your love of God. 

 

Your offering of this sacrifice is holy (because God consecrated you when you believed in Jesus for salvation) and pleasing (because you willingly offer your living [not dead] and rejuvenated [by Christ] selves) to God. 

 

Your offering of your redeemed self to God out of love for Him is your spiritual service of worship. 

 

Remember God redeemed you. He consecrated you. Therefore, you can go into His presence. Your offer of yourself to Him is accepted because He cleansed you through Jesus’ redemption of you. God did the work so you could be with Him and so your service and offering would be acceptable to Him. 

 

God asks for nothing greater than your whole being because of your love and obedience of/to Him. That is relationship. That loving obedience is worship. It is spiritual and service to/for God. 

Your worship of God should occur as your response to His loving mercy and forgiveness of you.

 

Give your redeemed self lovingly and in obedience to God for His purposes. Love Him with your redeemed offering of yourself.

Salty

 

You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless. Matthew 5:13 (NLT)

Many people have heard about Jesus and that He taught, healed, fed the hungry, and died on a cross, a brutal death of suffocation. Jesus taught on many things. Each teaching was about loving God by obeying Him, and believing Jesus is the Son of God, the prophesied Messiah.

The passage above comes from Matthew’s account of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. It speaks about saltiness. I’ve learned saltiness is slang for being sarcastic. A person is salty when he or she is sarcastic. People can be too salty. It comes from adding our humanness to an already difficult situation.

Jesus covered many aspects of life when He taught during His Sermon on the Mount. Their messages taught about loving God with our heart, mind, body, and spirit and loving other people as we want to be loved. In Matthew 5:13, Jesus spoke about a common commodity, salt. At that time, people used salt for preserving food, flavoring it, and caring for people’s and animals’ health. People understood salt. Jesus used this common item to teach the people a truth a truth. He used a parable.

When we consider this passage, we must wonder, can salt become unsalty? Have you ever heard of unsalty salt? In my mind, its flavor dictates its name. What good is unsalty salt? How can we make sure we have pure salt? How can we get it? What was the deeper meaning of this parable Jesus told? As we consider this passage briefly, let’s consider these questions and their answers.

Can salt be unsalty? Salt can lose its flavor, preservative, and disinfecting power if people add other things to it. This combined salt is impure. When people or a company create salt and add another ingredient to it, like iodine or carbon, the salt loses its saltiness. The shelf-life of iodized salt is five years. After five years, it loses its flavor and purposes. It can no longer be used to preserve meats or flavor food. In Israel, salt from the Dead Sea in southern Judah was not pure. The people could not use it for flavoring, preserving meat, or disinfecting wounds. Pure salt is sodium chloride. The only place people could get pure salt in that region was from the Mediterranean Sea. Obviously, salt was important to them, and is important today.

What can we do with unsalty salt? When this salt is worthless for its original purpose, people used it to clean ovens and pots. They used it as an abrasive. Unsalty salt absorbs the odor of garlic. It deodorizes strong odors, like bicarbonate soda does, because it combines carbon dioxide with sodium. When impure salt has lost its saltiness, it becomes an abrasive and deodorizer.

Impure salt is only good for its purposes for a short time, then it’s used for dirty activities. People add something to unsalty salt to it to make it salty for a short time. Nobody can add anything to manmade salt to make it permanently salty. Nothing can make impure salt salty again.

Did you catch that? Impure salt is manmade. Are we like impure salt? Do we try to make ourselves into good enough to be accepted by God and gain entrance into heaven upon our physical death on earth? People often will try to donate their time and money, strive for the highest position, or seek more money trying to be good enough. Of course, sometimes those actions are an excuse when people want power, position, status, and wealth. We must realize that nothing we do or say can make us righteous. Adding something good to our personal resume will not remove our sins. Just adding good words and actions to our personal sinfulness does not move us on the scale from sinful to holy/righteous.

Because we can do nothing to make ourselves righteous, since we have a sinful nature, the God the Father sent Jesus His Son to die on the cross in our place. His sinlessness means He is holy. His sacrifice of His life on the cross was as a substitute for ours. Jesus died so we do not have to die for our sins, the judgment we deserve from holy God. When we believe Jesus is the Son of God who died for us and confess and repent of our sins, we are not adding Jesus to ourselves. We are giving ourselves-heart, mind, body, and soul-to Jesus to cleanse and remake us into His image. Jesus is not an addition we make to our lives, like money, status, and fame. He makes us in His image-holy/righteous and renewed, born again. Our old selves are gone; the new has come. Paul wrote this in 2 Corinthians 5:17. He wrote, “This means anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun.” (NLT)

Consider yourself. Are you adding to yourself good works and things, hoping you’ll be good enough for God and enter heaven? When we do that, we add to our impurity, even if those things are good. We, like the manmade salt, are impure. To be and do good, we need Jesus to make us righteous. We are the impure salt until we believe in Jesus and confess and repent.

Don’t add good to impurity. It will not be good enough and will only be cast away. Let Jesus purify and remake you. Know you will be with God in heaven. Live out your faith in Jesus by your words, actions, and thoughts. Show the pure salt from heaven so others choose Jesus, and He makes them the salt and light of the world. Will you seek Jesus, who will remake you into pure salt and use you to share about Him?

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Matthew 5:13-16 (NLT)

 

 

 

Holy Presence

Recall what Habakkuk said in 2:20. He said, “The Lord is in His Holy Temple. Let all the earth be silent before Him.” This caught my eye as I was reading this chapter. Why is this significant? We know where we can always find the Lord, and be still and hushed in His presence. That place is His sanctuary.

Pieces of wood or stone made by humans into statues have less power than the man who carved them. They were inanimate before the carving and remained that way after the carving. The one who carved them into a shape has more power than the object. No place is holy to these objects because it has no power to make a place holy or sacred. Holiness is imbued by the character and power of a being. The only one who has this kind of power is Yahweh God. He cleanses and makes holy a place for His habitation by His decree. If we each proclaim a place clean that does not mean it actually is clean. We’ve just moved the dirt from one place to another or missed something. We do not have the power to declare something, someone, or some place clean or holy because we ourselves are sinful and unholy. We cannot even make something that is holy because of our sinfulness.

When we search for and find this place of holiness, the temple of God, we may enter. We must remember we will be in the presence of almighty, holy God. What right do we have to bring our filthy selves before Him? None, but He made a way for us to be cleansed and made holy through the sacrificial death of His Son, Jesus. Once accepting Jesus as your Savior and repenting of all your sins, you are clean. God sets you apart as His child. This setting apart is the act of “making holy.” God set apart and made His temple holy, sacred. Can you imagine the release and relief of a person who feels the weight of their dirtiness removed from their heart, mind, and soul? God’s “making holy” provides release and relief. It’s like a huge cleansing breath after being in the basement of a dank building. The sky is clean; the sun shines; the darkness departs.

Even though we tasted this cleansing, this deep breath of release and relief, why do we choose to go back to our old ways? Why do we choose to chase idols of the heart, mind, and flesh? Who would purposely choose to carry a weight on his chest bearing him down as he tried to rise from the floor every moment of the day? That is what we do when we tell our idols to awake or arise as Habakkuk said in verse 19. If we must wake our gods, they are no gods at all. They are products of our minds and hands. If they come from our hands, they have no power - no power over our present situation or our future. They cannot cleanse and make a person holy or sacred. They cannot declare a place holy. The person who made the thing is the only voice heard.

If we must wake our gods, they are no gods at all.

This then brings us back to what Habakkuk said in verse 20. The Lord is in His holy temple. We can find Him there. Always. He has breath. He is alive and doesn’t need to be awakened. The Lord created the holy temple. He has the ability and desire to make you His holy child, too. He is awake. He is aware. He is Holy and love. God wants to make you clean so you can enter His temple and come to Him.

“Come to Me all who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest.” [Matthew 11:28] Only God can say that. Only He has the power do it. Only He loves you enough to offer it with no attachments, no tricks, and no requirements.

Come to God with your heavy hearts.

Come to Him with your pain.

Come to God with your broken hearts and spirit.

Come to Him with defeat and exhaustion.

Come to Holy God and find rest, cleansing, love, and hope.

Nothing created by the hands of people can give this. They have less power than the person who made them. We humans cannot make ourselves holy, give ourselves soul peace, heal pain, broken hearts, and spirit, or give refreshing rest. Human-made idols cannot give you this.  

God leaves it at that – COME.

Lord, I come to You exhausted, broken, sinful, hopeless, unloved, and filled with pain. I ask to come into Your presence. I seek your Holiness and to be in Your presence. Please cleanse me, calm and restore my soul, heal my broken heart, and give me your sweet rest. Show me my sins against you so I may repent and enter into Your presence.

Sanctification: What is it?

Sanctification, hagiosmos[1], comes from the Greek root word hagias[2], which means holy, hallow, sanctify, consecrate, dedicate, or set apart. Hagiosmos means to make holy. Sanctifying comes from the Greek word, hagiazo and means to render, acknowledge, or be holy; to separate from profane things and dedicate to God[3]. Sanctification and sanctifying are actions. Sanctified is a status and a point of becoming. It comes from the Old Testament word qadash[4], which means to make sacred, holy, or to set apart. We read of this word in Genesis 2:3 when God set aside the seventh day of the week to be holy. Qadash is a point to which believers attain as Paul told believers in Ephesians 1. From these words, we realize holiness, sacredness, and being set apart are actions done by one who is holy in being towards things or people who are not holy. Remember, for an action to occur, like making something or someone holy, a being must exist to do the action. Only one who is holy can make or bestow the status of holiness upon someone or something.

In the Old Testament, we read in many places about God being holy. God called Himself holy in Leviticus 19:2 and 20:26. Isaiah said it in Isaiah 6:3-5. Peter reiterated it in 1 Peter 1:15-16. Jesus taught the disciples in the Lord’s Prayer that God was hallow – holy (Matthew 6:9, Luke 11:2). Qadowsh[5] is the word used in these passages and means holy, sacred, Holy One, saint, and set apart.

Let’s understand this better now. For anyone to make something or someone holy, holiness must be a part of the being bestowing the status of holy. The Old Testament records God as being holy. No other being in the Bible has this attribute as part their being. That being said, only God can make or declare something or someone holy, just as Jesus said in John 10:36. So sanctifying work originates with Holy God. To put it another way, God is the only one who can make someone or something holy, sacred, or set apart for Himself.

The question now arises: How does the impartation of holiness occur? In the Old Testament, God declared the people of Jacob His people and that made them a set-apart people, holy to Him (Leviticus 19:2 & 20:26, et al.). God’s speaking brought the different elements into being in Genesis. He declared them very good. God’s choosing and setting apart the people of Jacob made them holy to Himself. He gave the Israelites and the Sabbath day the status of holiness.

Along with the Old Testament, in the New Testament we read about God’s action that brought about the sanctification of people. That action was the incarnation and crucifixion of His only Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus’ crucifixion provided the perfect sacrifice for the sins of humankind. No sacrifice humans can provide for their sins is sufficient to remove the stain of sin permanently and to give release from the power of sin and death. Nothing else was perfect – without sin. We read about God’s sanctification occurring this way in the New Testament. Paul told the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 1:2, “They have been sanctified in Christ Jesus.” The writer of Hebrews stated many times God’s sanctifying action occurred through the blood of Jesus Christ (Hebrews 2:11, 9:13-14, 10:10, 10:14, 10:29, and 13:12). As Jesus is just and is the justifier in the last lesson, He is holy and provides holiness (sanctification) in this lesson.

Is that all there is to sanctification? Is it a once-off action by God alone? Sanctification is a continuing process. The journey of being a Christian in this world is a journey to perfection – toward holiness/complete sanctification. Paul wrote in Romans 6:19, “So now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.” Later in 2 Corinthians 7:1, Paul said, “Therefore, having these promises, beloved let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” In 1 Thessalonians 4:3-4, 2 Timothy 2:21, Hebrews 12:14, Ephesians 1:4, and 1 Peter 3:15, we note actions and attitudes by Holy God sanctified a person and additional actions by the person led by the Spirit are required for continuing sanctification. Sanctification then has more than one part. The first part is when you receive the gift from God of salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ given on the cross as mentioned in the last paragraph. The second part is the growing more like Christ - taking on the mind of Christ - and following God in obedience to Him through the power of the Holy Spirit. Doing righteous works because of growing to be more like Christ is the process of sanctification, being made perfect through the power of the Holy Spirit who lives in every believer. Faith at work in the life of the believer is part of the process of sanctification - part of the journey of growing more like Christ, putting on His mind.

Sanctification comprises justification (the static point in time when a person accepts God’s gift of salvation and believes in Jesus Christ), which is purity before God. Without justification, there cannot be sanctification. Sanctification includes righteousness, purity before the law of God. This is our acting out the right acts inspired in us by the Holy Spirit. Paul and Peter wrote that sanctification was of the Spirit in Romans 15:16, 1 Corinthians 6:11, Ephesians 4:30, 1 Thessalonians 4:7-8, 2 Thessalonians 2:13, and 1 Peter 1:2. Besides these, sanctification includes blamelessness, purity before the world. Paul spoke of these three parts of holiness/sanctification in 1 Thessalonians 2:10 when he said, “You are witnesses, and so is God, how devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers.” Sanctification begins with God actions purifying humans through the perfect sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ. It continues as these believers live in the world following the Holy Spirit to be more like Jesus in their interactions with God and with the world each day. God sets believers apart to be holy for Him. They live out that holiness growing more sanctified with the help of the Holy Spirit. “Sanctification is the will of God. It is an active living out of righteousness according to God[6].”

Sanctification goes on until perfection as Paul mentioned in Colossians 3:14 and 2 Corinthians 7:1. Jesus called His disciples to perfection in Matthew 5:48 when he said, “You are to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Perfection – complete holiness – is the goal of Christians. Paul expressed he was not perfect but pressed on toward the higher calling – sanctification/perfection - not thinking it would be accomplished in this life. Whenever we sin, we show we are not perfect. We do not perfectly reflect/have the mind of Christ who was perfect. By this, we know we are not sanctified completely. John spoke of this continuing growth into perfection/sanctification in 1 John 1:7-2:2.

Justification occurs when we are made just or right with God through the sacrificial blood of God’s Holy and perfect Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus’ blood was the sacrifice. Being perfect, He could remove the stain of sin and remove the power of sin and death. Justification is the first part of sanctification. It is the point in time God began His work in the believer to make him or her holy just as Jesus Christ is holy. The working out of the salvation He gave us is obedience to God and becoming more Christlike, which comes from our love and reverence of God. By living out the love of God in the world, we become daily more like Christ, more perfect and holy. We become more righteous and blameless. Sanctification is not a one-step occurrence, but a journey of Christian faithfulness to God through the power of the Holy Spirit. This journey is the taking on the mind of Christ and being re-made into His image. Perfection will not be complete until we reach heaven where temptation and sin have no power. Paul said this in Acts 20:32 and 26:18. He said those who are Christians are given an inheritance among all who are sanctified by the blood of Jesus Christ, the saints. Christ is the “wisdom from God, and the righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30).

Sanctification is for everyone who believes. Jesus Christ came to the world to be the Light leading people to relationship with God. God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world not to judge the world, but that the world might be saved from their sins and rebellion and return to Him (John 3:17). He did this because He loves the world and wants no person to die, and be permanently and eternally separated from Him (John 3:16).

If you have never accepted the gift of God’s love, now is your chance. Today accept that Jesus is the Son of God who came to provide forgiveness for your sin so you could have a relationship with God and live with Him forever. Confess your sins to Him and He promises to forgive you. When you do this, God sanctifies you and calls you His own. He sets you apart for Himself and makes you holy for Him. Begin the journey of sanctification and walk in the power of the Holy Spirit.

If you are already a Christian, are you continuing your journey toward sanctification, towards perfection through Jesus Christ. God, being holy, gave you the status of being holy (set apart) to Him. Now you must choose to walk in His ways becoming more like Christ with the power of the Holy Spirit.

What is keeping you from being sanctified – being made complete and perfect?

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[1] www.iblestudytools.com. New Testament Lexicon based on Thayer’s and Smith’s New Testament Lexicon and keyed to Kittel’s Theological Dictionary and the “Theological Dictionary of the New Testament.”

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6]Walter Elwell, ed. Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (Baker Academic: Grand Rapids, 2001).