What Is Holy? Purity....

This week, we are going to continue pursuing God into the question He's tasked us with: What is Holy? God really pressed something upon my heart yesterday. It was all about building an alter to the Lord. He directed me to Exodus 30:7-10. It's talking about the instructions God gave to the Israelites in building the tabernacle. It says, "Aaron must burn fragrant incense on the altar every morning when he tends the lamps. He must burn incense again when he lights the lamps at twilight so incense will burn regularly before the Lord for the generations to come. Do not offer on this altar any other incense or any burnt offering or grain offering, and do not pour a drink offering on it. Once a year Aaron shall make atonement on its horns. This annual atonement must be made with the blood of the atoning sin offering for the generations to come. It is most holy to the Lord." The most important things about this text is two fold: 1, They would do this for atonement of sins. (and specifically for sins that hadn't even been committed yet!) And 2, this act, was "holy to the Lord". If it was something holy, we need to understand why. The answer is all about purity. God requires purity because He is pure. That is part of holiness. Let's go back to the definition of holiness. Holy means: perfect in all goodness and righteousness. Another way to probably say that is the same way we define purity: without blemish or sin. God is perfect in goodness and righteousness because He is without blemish. Just to share, I felt very much in my soul like yesterday (and hopefully the days to come) we need to set up an alter before the Lord in our hearts and constantly throw our lives upon it. We need to ask that whatever is not pleasing to God would be consumed so that we may be pure before Him. In the Old Testament, they would often name the alter based on what God had done or what they were wanting to remember forever. I feel like God has asked us to call this alter, "Whatever it takes." Basically, we are saying, whatever it takes to be holy, whatever it takes to be pure before the Lord is what we will daily pursue. So as you go about your day today, tomorrow, and so on, take some time to build an alter to the Lord for purity and holiness for our God is holy and requires that we be the same.

Whatever it takes....

What Is Holy? Love....

Let me just say that I couldn't have been more thrilled at the heart to which I really felt like everyone received the new direction for The Pursuit! I am absolutely convinced that if we stay the course and continue to seek God and learn about His Holiness, we will begin to experience a deeper level of worship and a greater understanding of our Saviour in a way we never have before. God really was speaking today and for all of those that were able to make it, I have never experienced a two hour block of time that went by as quickly as that did! That really excites me because as Pastor Brad shared today, we really are Pursuing His presence in this! We are going after being right where He is. Remember the scripture we are using? "Exalt the Lord our God and worship at His holy mountain, for the Lord our God is holy." Psalm 99:9 We are going to worship at "His holy mountain". We are meeting Him where He dwells in this encounter. I am convinced that in His presence, our concept of time is honestly meaningless and so I couldn't be more excited that this was the shortest two hours of my life! That just says to me that we are going there! Thank You Jesus for giving us the opportunity to be where you are! So what I feel like God is speaking to me is the characteristics that make up Holiness. Today, I couldn't get away from His love. And honestly, if I could have gotten away, I wouldn't have wanted to. That all encompassing, ever lasting love of God was the first step or the first characteristic and what God wants to convey to us about this thing called holy. I want to rewind and remember the definition of holy. Holy means: exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness. The last part is what I want to note, "perfect in goodness and righteousness." Think about this. You can be perfect at something perhaps. But the definition is very careful to distinguish that this is "perfect in goodness and righteousness." And that is exactly what His love is. His love is perfect in it's goodness. Check out what we normally say about His love. His love is: never ending, all encompassing, everlasting, sacred, pure, honest, etc. That is perfect love and that is what He wants to share with us. His love is holy. In His presence, there is fullness of joy and I know, overwhelming love for His creation. There is nowhere I can run. There is nowhere I can hide. There is no sin I could commit that could ever be great than His love for me! This week, I want to challenge everyone with this. (as I do the same) Take a look at 1 Corinthians 13 but specifically, verses 1-7. Let's take the Jesus test together. In verse 4-7, every time the word love appears, replace the word love with your name. See how far you get. Now go back and replace it with Jesus. Is it any wonder that He was the perfect sacrifice?

Thank you Jesus for Your love....

What Is Holy?

First off, let me say how proud I am of everyone who's been making it to The Pursuit! And I'm not proud because it makes me feel good about myself but because of the heart in which everyone has been coming! It is very easy to see the passion of our church displayed by the willingness to dive deeper into the heart of our Creator. It seems like things have really been going great so far and I think things are about to get even better! God has really placed something on my heart today that I just can't shake until I share it and we get started! It feels like He really wants us to learn about what it means to be "holy". I believe that knowing what it means to be holy will really increase our relationship with a God that is Holy! I don't quite know yet how this will effect the normal flow of The Pursuit yet but in general, we will still be sticking to a time of prayer and worship maybe just geared more towards seeking God and learning holiness together! So let's start with this scripture which I think is gonna be central thought for our times together. "Exalt the Lord our God and worship at his holy mountain, for the Lord our God is holy."- Psalm 99:9 The word of God tells us two things here: First, we are suppose to worship Him where He dwells (we are called to worship Him in His Presence) and secondly, we are doing this because He is holy. We tend to throw that term around a lot without a solid grasp on what it means so I wanted to see what the dictionary really says about it. Holy means, "exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness". Righteousness means free from guilt or sin. So in other words, God is saying that He is worthy of everything we've got not because He is just perfect but because He is perfect in all good things! So let's stop there for right now and give it some time to sink in. (that goes double for myself) Our God is not only perfect but perfect in a way that is without guilt or sin. Father, begin to reveal to our hearts as Your bride who You really are. You are perfect. You are righteous.

You are holy....