Does This Holiness Make My Head Look Big?

I am amused every time I tell other believers that the word "holy" is a word borrowed from pagans.  They seem shocked to hear that.  But the Christian Scriptures were written in Greek, a language of pagans.  How could the word not be a borrowed pagan word.  Almost all of them were.  What it means though is that the meaning was also brought over.  There was a pagan understanding of holiness rarely considered.  I consider it only because most of the places I have to practice holiness are "pagan" rather than Christian.

Paul, in his closing of his first letter to the church in Thessalonica wished for them that the God of peace would sanctify them (the process making them holy) all through; spirit, soul, and body.  He used words that referred to both quality and quantity, leaving no space in the believers life for the common or profane.  So, these believers were to practice this holy dispostion in the world around them; a pagan, sometimes hostile, misunderstanding, self-focused, and sometimes indifferent society.  It sounds familiar.  They really cared about Jesus followers only when the peace or commerce were disrupted.

So what does holy mean?  http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sanctification try this link.  It's informative.  The simplified definition includes purity from sin and the process of being set apart for God's use alone.  The second part is the normal use in pagan understanding, the process including a washing which where the first part is derived from.  In the Hebrew Scriptures, holiness was so important than an entire book was dedicated to both the Hebrew people and the priests who served God on their behalf.  God was very strict in how He wanted this holiness expressed by both priests and the rest of the people.  Unfortunately, the contents of the book of Leviticus have not made very interesting reading for most modern believers.

So how does this holiness play out in my life?  It must play out in some way which preserves the characteristic of being set apart, and also intersect with this unholy world.  That was forbidden in Leviticus.  Holiness was maintained by not mixing things, anything, even types of cloth (no wool blends!).  So how can I walk before this infinitely Holy God and be blameless as He calls me to be, when I have to interact daily with people who are anything but holy; they aren't even interested in being holy?

The short answer is, "I don't know."  The nice thing is that I don't have to know.  One less thing to worry about.  The verse after Paul expresses his wish for the believers sanctification (the process again), he praises the God calling them to be holy, and says, "He will do it."  He uses the future tense.  He uses the generic word for make or do.  He uses a short sentence, which for Paul should mark something as particularly special.  So what do I do?  I let Him.

Spiritual disciplines are activities I take which make me accessible to God and His work in transforming me.  They do not, in and of themselves, make me holy.  In fact sometimes they can become so distracting, they keep me from holiness.  I was never intended to be set aside to spiritual disciplines.  I was intended to be set aside for the work of God through His Spirit within my very soul, spirit, and body.  So, I live out my day, interacting with the pagan world, yet trying to set my mind on things above.  Somewhere in the midst of that struggle to remain between two worlds, God makes these adjustments and tweaks to the core of my being.  People around me notice before I do that there are qualities about me that are less about me, and more about God himself.  I become a tree bearing different fruit; fruit of the Spirit rather than my spirit.

It would be glaringly obvious to even the most casual observer that my cynacism, skepticism, sarcasm, and hautiness are probably not those "fruit".  So, the Gardener has a long way to go with this stubborn tree.  "More discipline, please," I murmur as I hold out my hands to my Master.  And with a sigh of resignation, but with a tinge of hope, I enter again into another day.  Perhaps today I will show progress and bear at least one example of good fruit.