pure – Moment to Moment (Bible blog)

Holiness

If there is one theme at the end of chapter 3 and the start of chapter 4 (which is why it was probably a bad idea to break this section up with the chapter division), it’s holiness.

Time and again, we see words with the same Greek root meaning “holiness”, which unfortunately is not so clear in the English.

Holiness, of course, often has a duel meaning. One is “purity” and the other is “set apart,” which in the case of the Christian, means “set apart for God as his own special people.”

And in this passage, Paul prays that God would make the Thessalonians and all the “saints” blameless in “holiness” before our God.” (1 Thessalonians 3:13)

Many times we thinks of saints as the super spiritual, but “saint” shares the same root word as “holiness” just a few words earlier in the verse.

All Christians are saints, because we are all set apart for God as his own special people. And because of that we are to live lives that are blameless and pure.

Paul stresses that a few sentences later, saying,

For this is God’s will, your sanctification… (1 Thessalonians 4:3)

Again, “sanctification” has that same root as the words “holiness” and “saints.” God’s will for us is that we live lives that are set apart for him, lives that are pure.

Paul specifically tells us to be pure sexually, which was as big a problem back then as it is now. And he emphasizes,

For God has not called us to impurity but to live in holiness. (4:7)

And then he says,

Consequently, anyone who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit. (4:8)

Some people who claim to be Christians try to do just that: they reject God’s call on their lives to be holy. They would much rather live in their lusts. But in doing so, they’re actually rejecting God.

Can you really call such a person a Christian if that’s how they live the entirety of their lives?

We are called to be holy, because he is holy. And his Holy (there’s that word again) Spirit is living in us.

If the Spirit, who himself is holy, is truly living in us, how can we then live unholy lives, never repenting, but always making excuses and justifying our actions?

So let us listen to the Spirit in our lives. Let us follow his leading each day. Let us live by his power each day.

We will never be able to live holy lives in our own strength, by our own willpower. But the Spirit works us in us daily, and as we listen to him, we become more and more like the One who loved us and gave his life for us.

And ultimately, isn’t that our hope.

So as we strive for holiness, let us not only remember Paul’s words, but John’s, who wrote,

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.

The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. (1 John 3:1-3)

Jesus’ zeal for his temple

Well, for those who have been praying for my computer, thank you. It’s finally back up and running after hours of futile troubleshooting. All of it actually sparked a thought for today’s blog.

In this passage, Jesus comes to the temple and finds that it’s invaded by a bunch of merchants and money changers.

They had set up their business in the temple courts, namely, the court of the Gentiles. People who were not Jews and wanted to come to worship God were only allowed in up to that point.

But when Jesus arrived at that outer courtyard, he saw utter chaos. Sheep, cattle, and birds were all making a ruckus, hardly conducive to an atmosphere of worship.

And if that weren’t bad enough, many people who had to change their money to pay for their temple taxes were getting horrific exchange rates.

Others, meanwhile, were being told that the animals they had brought to sacrifice weren’t good enough and were being forced to buy new ones at premium prices.

Little wonder that Jesus was a bit, shall we say, perturbed?

So for one of the few times in the gospels, we see Jesus go on a rampage, driving all the money changers and animals out of the courtyard, and bellowing out,

Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market! (John 2:16)

The Jewish leaders then demanded him to show what right he had to do such a thing; what miraculous sign he could do to show that he was truly doing God’s will, to which Jesus replied,

Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days. (John 2:19)

The Jews thought he meant Herod’s temple, that was still not fully completed even after 46 years. (It was finally completed in 63 A.D).

But John tells us that Jesus was talking about his body. That though they may destroy it on the cross, yet he would raise it up in three days.

By the way, this totally destroys the idea that Jesus rose from the dead as a spirit as some, like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, like to claim. Here Jesus specifically tells us that he would raise his actual body.

But just as Jesus referred to his body as a temple, so Paul refers to our bodies as the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19).

And just as Jesus was zealous for the temple in Jerusalem, and keeping it pure for the worship of God, so he is zealous for the temple of our bodies, that we keep it holy and set apart for God.

Yet so often, we clutter it up not only with sin, but with other things as well that would keep us from a pure worship of God.

Which brings me back to my computer. When it went down, my hardware was fine, I just had my Windows software go down, such that it would not boot up. As a result, I still had access to all my files. I just had to go through DOS (does anyone still remember DOS) to get at it.

I tried desperately to find a way to not have to reinstall everything. But in the end, I simply had to back everything up, format the disk (in other words, wipe everything out), and then reinstall everything.

I had a lot of things on the disk that were not bad at all. There were many good things there. But because of the corruption that was there, it made it impossible for the system to go.

How about you? Is there anything in your heart that is distracting you from your worship of God?

Or is there anything in your heart that is keeping others from seeing God in you, just as all the sheep, goats, and money-changers kept the Gentiles from seeing God in the temple?

There may be sin. Or there may be things that are not bad in themselves, but are still causing harm in your temple.

Let Jesus purge it from your life and make you the temple he desires you to be.

What’s in your temple?