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In the Old Covenant, sin had the greater power. Defilement was stronger than holiness. As a result, followers of God had to avoid touching dead people; they stayed away from lepers; and they had to always be on guard to keep themselves from becoming unclean. The calling to the follower of God in that day was to avoid all evil and the defilement it caused. Holiness was something to be closely guarded.
Under the New Covenant, instead of things outside of us making us unclean, we make them holy. Paul puts it this way in Titus 1:15:
To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted
and do not believe, nothing is pure.
When we walk in submission and in love with Jesus, we have the ability to make whatever we do pure and holy - an acceptable act of worship in His eyes. We can even brush our teeth and our tooth brushing becomes in itself a holy activity of worship.
There is no need to go try and find great things to do for God. He is just as honored when we do little things for Him. He is not looking for the size of our results. He is looking for the devotion of our hearts. When our hearts are right, we make whatever we do in life holy and pleasing to Him.
I recently heard a sermon in which the preacher likened our faith to the swine flu. He said that the sick don't become well by being around the well; instead, the well become sick when they're around the sick. Therefore, the sinful don't become holy by being around the holy; instead the holy become sinful by being around the sinful. Something about that sounded so wrong to me. Didn't this view nullify the power of God's holiness channeled through us? Yes, we're not perfect vessels, but isn't He all-holy, all-powerful, able to do anything? How could sin have this much power over His holiness and His holy people?
ReplyDeleteSo thank you for this post, and for sharing Titus 1:15. I agree with you, and you've given me Scriptural basis for what I believe! May everything we do become holy!