The Lord also said to Moses, “Give the following instructions to the entire community of Israel. You must be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.” (Leviticus 19:1-2)There was an old Simpsons cartoon about the children of Israel as they were coming out of Egypt. There were several characters in the nation that were played by Simpsons characters.
There was Homer the Adulterer, who was proud of his accomplishments. Another guy was well known for his prowess as a thief, a third for lying. They were held in some esteem by the Israelites because of their abilities.
Then Moses spoiled it all by coming down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments, outlawing their specialized fields. They were irritated because now they had to get new jobs.
Even though that was a stupid cartoon, I laughed out loud. Their reactions to being told they were wrong after making a career out of their wrong doing was funny.
The thing is, though, they were. And they could not be followers of his and do these things.
God told them that the defining characteristic of the Israelites would be that they were holy as he was holy. In other words, they were to imitate him and not each other. He was their standard and not what they wanted to do.
That is still true. We are to imitate him, not the world. And that is hard.
The old song by Debbie Boone, You Light Up My Life, has the phrase “It can't be wrong when it feels so right.” The problem is it can. Just because it feels right in our hearts doesn’t really mean anything.
Jeremiah 17:9 says The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve. It is God who determines right and wrong. We can’t. our thoughts and feelings get in the way.
That is why the apostle Paul said in Ephesians 5:1, Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children. When we imitate him, we imitate all that is holy and good and righteous. He is our standard.
That is the whole point of the Bible: to give us a standard, an explanation of the standard and the good that comes from following the standard.
Be holy. And the only way you can do that is by giving yourself to God and allowing him to consume you.
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