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....