Finding the Messiah in Leviticus 12-2-2016

Finding the Messiah in Leviticus Friday 12-2 Leviticus 14:27-42
“WEARING OUR SPIRITUAL ATTIRE
LEVITICUS 11:1 – 14 : 57

I, the LORD, am your God. You must be holy “because I am holy (11:44).

[i reflect]

A wedding invitee was digging postholes on his ranch when he suddenly remembered the wedding, which was to begin in less than half an hour. He hopped into his pickup truck and raced off to the church. At first congratulating himself on managing to slip into a pew before the bride began her procession, he soon noticed other guests casting glances his way. This was a formal wedding—and he was in dirty work clothes! He was mortified.

To borrow some biblical imagery, we must be clothed in righteousness by washing our robes in the blood of the Lamb if we are to worship him who dwells in unapproachable light.

The lyric to an angelic praise chorus begins this way: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty” (Revelation 4:8). The triple use of “holy” indicates complete holiness. God is not somewhat holy or essentially holy, but wholly holy.

Singing such a song is all well and good for angels who have never sinned. But what about us? How can we, who swim in the sin-polluted pool known as humanity, presume to come near to God and declare his “declare his holiness? Our clothes have a lust smudge here, a bitterness stain there, and a selfishness tear at the hem.

God chooses to see us as righteous if we ask to be clothed in “Christ’s righteousness and washed in his blood. And he wants us, in addition, to do our best at bringing our actual behavior in line with our granted position before God. Do a mental assessment of your spiritual attire. What is preventing you from worshiping him “in the splendor of his holiness” (Psalm 29:2)?

[I pray]

O Lord, help me to see how the sin I play with is not a toy but a weapon turned upon me. Make my feet swift as I flee sin.

(I respond]

Who is the holiest person you know? Get together with him or her and ask to hear the hard-earned lessons this person must “earned lessons this person must have learned about climbing the stairway of sanctification.”
Excerpt From: Thomas Nelson. “NLT, Personal Worship Bible, eBook.” iBooks.