Holy Like God is Holy, or Holy as I Consider God to be Holy?

Jesus used illustrations from the mundane to explain the profound.  So truth about very important aspects of my life with my Master can be found in the mundane areas of life.  In 1 Corinthians 10:31 when Paul is wrapping up his argument about food sacrificed to idols, he uses this statement as a general admonition to bring the focus of the glory of God into common aspects of my life.  Since Jesus used common aspects as illustrations, it seems He finds wisdom in these elements of life.

So, I have very common things I do each day where I can focus on the glory of my Master.  In these I can find wisdom when I look; lessons about the deeper things of my relationship with my Master.  For instance, washing dishes brings to mind Jesus’ statement about washing the inside being more important than the outside.  Even building something is used by Jesus to illustrate how it is necessary to plan for the end before I even begin my relationship with my Master; I am to finish well.  There are dozens more, and probably more that didn’t even make it into the gospels.

If those places of my daily life are made holy, not just the “holy” ones, I become more holy.  I don’t become holy in the sense that God is holy, but I become holy in the same way I consider Him holy.  I see my Master as completely “other”; distinct from any other person.  He is capable of creation at vast levels of complexity and in miniscule levels of intricacy.  I am not, nor will I ever be.  I’m not holy in that way; rather I’m holy in the sort of way I set Him aside as distinct from this common world.  I need to be distinct as well.  I need to be obviously different from others in my character and my behavior.

I am to be holy as implements are holy, not in the way that standing in His presence as a profane man would destroy me.  Although, I do need to abstain from unholy things as He does.  Jesus has the ability to transform common things to holy things.  Some things defy this transformation.  I want to follow this pattern of transforming common things I do into holy activities, and stay far away from behaviors and thoughts which defy such transformation.  Washing dishes, answering the phone (i.e. my job), and listening to my daughter talk and talk and talk and talk (oh my gracious…) are all things that can be and should be transformed into holy activities.

My interior thought life often runs headlong into the profane patterns that cannot be transformed into holy things.  Those I need to put under the ban.  These are the thoughts I bring captive to my Master.  The thoughts of sinful pleasures of my selfish nature are those things that will pass away in the process of my Master transforming this common man into a holy man.  I wish they were gone already, but they aren’t.  I still wrestle with them, and they still have a power over me; power I gave them long ago and still leave with them.  These things refuse transformation, so they must be destroyed.  I’m not there yet.

I am a man in transition.  I am a person in between the common profane life of this world and the holy glorious life of my Master.  My standard needs to be higher.  On that scale of holiness, I want to be further along.  I can be.  It’s not like I’m just getting by with my sinful thoughts until my Master comes for me.  I don’t want Him coming to find me consumed by sinful thought patterns!  How embarrassing, for us both!  I believe that when my Master calls me to be holy as my Father in Heaven is holy, this is a call that can be answered in this life.  Leviticus is full of explanations that the people were to be holy as God is holy.  It’s not a new idea.

So, today I dedicate my work, my family, and my mind to my Master.  I do so now, and I will need to do so again in about an hour.  And then I will need to do so around lunch, and then again as I get off work.  I will probably need to do so again at various times through my work day as well.  And there will be family time after work when I will need to rededicate my mind, words, and attitudes back to my Master.  I will have a lot of this going on I suspect.  But if I don’t I will miss the Person more amazing than anything I’ve seen through either my telescope or microscope; the One making all of it and holding it all together.  I can’t have that.

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, November 22

Holiness Is The Context of Wrath

There is a word used by Chambers in this entry which is at the heart of the issue he has pursued the last three days.  The word is more comfortably used to refer to our standing before the Creator and Master of all things.  But when applied to the One who defines it, it becomes terrible even more than it becomes logically necessary.  The truth is that my Master is Holy.  And this is a frightening thing when compared to my profane life inside and out.  Moses spoke with God face to face, and yet could not gaze on His glory, but had to be hidden, seeing only the trailing final tendrils of it. 

The Holiness of God obliterates the existence of all that is not as pure as it is.  That is why it is so frightening; “For no man has seen me and lives (Exodus 33:20).”  This holiness takes the “otherness” of God to the extreme that is logically necessary for One who has Created this cosmos.  There truly could not be imagined a way for us to reach through the otherness of such a One.  What I discover is that for this One to reach out to His created beings requires a concession on His part.  This concession is required to bridge the gap between the magnitude of the holiness of such vast power and such limited frail ones such as me.

To stand in the presence of God with anything that is not what He has designed is to be in contempt of the One who made me, and all creation.  The nature of my sin is that I want to be my own master and my own god (my pastor reminded me of that Thursday – Thanks Pastor Rod!).  Such a nature stands in contempt of the One who truly is Master and God of all, not just me.  How can I exist in His presence with such a nature?  If Moses could not as the friend of God, how can I?  There is no fix available that I can produce or provide that will enable me to stand in the crushing weight and furnace fire that is the Holy Presence.

The glory of my Master is something I have seen in a vision, toned down to fit into my tiny head.  To enter from a dark hallway, I had to pass through a membrane that filtered out all my impurities.  I arrived in dirty tattered clothes and Jesus gave me a new robe to wear.  Even with my new robe, the pain in passing through the membrane was enormous.  It was like I left more than half of myself behind in the dark hallway.  But after the pain I stood in the brilliant presence of my Master.  I could not see His face, only such light that would blind me as the sun, and yet I could look anyway.  That “membrane” and the One giving me the new Robe, they are the same.

The Creator and Holder of unimaginable power, even though I am profane to my very core nature, still desired that “light” He imparted to every human.  He still wanted communion with those He made but who rebelled against Him; and continue in their rebellion.  He wants me as I am a member of this vast rabble of shameful rebels.  And His desire cannot be denied, even by Himself.  He moved to make it possible for the requirements of His holiness to be met on my behalf.  The wrath is now located in the context of the holiness of my Master.  It is a characteristic of such glorious otherness.  And it is pacified only in  the work of Jesus.

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, November 21

Being the Dish I Wash

I have a problem.  If you've been following this blog for any time, you would agree that is an understatement.  I have a host of problems, but I want to focus on one in particular today, that I tend to minimize or ignore.  Readers may have already picked up on it, so if it's obvious already...well, get over it.  It's new to me.

I have been neglecting my responsibility to cleanse myself and perfect or complete holiness in myself.  I should be doing this in fear of my Master.  As my ministry buddy, Paul, says in 2 Corinthians 7:1, as a result of the promises lined out in chapter 6, I should purify or cleanse myself (go through catharsis, which could also be emotional cleansing), and perfect or complete holiness in fear of God.  There is not a lot of wiggle room or gray area in this statement.  The promise in chapter 6 is the adoption by God which, as Paul puts it, God has already done.  So the cleansing and completing of holiness is in response to a promise we trust has already been completed on God's part.  Sounds good, doesn't it?  I'm not working to gain the promise, I'm working in gratitude for having the promise already.

I seem to not be all that honorable a receiver of the promise.  Having received the adoption by my Master, I then have not purified myself and do not consider holiness to be completed in me.  I have not done this in fear of my Master.  I still lust, I still speak negatively about someone without knowledge, I still consider hone my sarcasm and cynicism regularly.  These are not the actions which increase holiness, but rather the opposite.  These actions make me look like everyone else, and that means common or profane (in the sense as not set apart for special use by a deity, not in the sense of cussing or something).  Because these terms which are antithetical to holiness are so often used for using "bad" or four-letter words, the application of them to daily life is lost.  But it is actually more appropriate to use them for daily living than my language.  If I use a lot of "colorful" language, I don't talk like everyone else, I don't hear that language at work.  But if I act with a cynical attitude, then my attitude does look like those who have no relationship with Jesus, and that is profane, common, or vulgar, in their actual meanings.  They have been vilified to the point of uselessness in the development of holiness.

It would be great if I could blame my lack of holy development on semantics of antithetical terms, but I can't.  I may not be able to use those antithetical words for what I do normally, but I still understand that my actions and attitudes are not holy.  I know that my words and terms are more like the world I live in rather than my home world of Heaven.  I know those facts even if those around me do not.  That they do not notice anything different about me is what speaks volumes in support of my point.  I am not holy if there is nothing appreciably different about my demeanor than the agnostics, practical atheists, and utilitarians I work with.  If my actions do not declare that I know God exists, or I give the impression that I simply go with whatever works regardless of moral implications, then I cannot be distinguished from those categories of people around me who have no practical daily working relationship with the Master of the universe.  That's not an opinion, that is true by definition of holiness, of agnostic, of practical atheist, of utilitarian, and therefore of me when I fit those other definitions. 

I may not actually be those things, but no one knows my true character unless my actions support that character and make it known.  I may have been adopted by the Master of all space, time, and matter.  But it is a grand secret I keep until I perfect holiness in fear of God.  Perhaps I have tasted and seen that He is God, but if I keep it a secret, then I have not ritually purified myself for the special use of this One I serve (or am supposed to be serving).  If some random person were to survey my co-workers regarding my beliefs, would they be able to point to actions and attitudes on my part that support what they may suspect from sporadic claims I have made in the last five years?  Or would their answers approximate something more like, "Well he said that he believes in Jesus, but..."  Whatever follows the but is the verifiable part, and is more real in their minds than any claim on my part. 

Today, I will attempt to cleanse my mind, my attitudes, my actions, my speech from cynicism, sarcasm, and curb my imaginations desire to jump to conclusions without knowledge.  I will seek today to be more available to the special use of my Master.  Boy this will take a lot more than a shower.