Jesus...in His
Holiness
How great the power
and charm of a holy life! The world is
replete with beauty. There is beauty in
nature, beauty in art, beauty in countless forms; but there is no beauty like
“the beauty of holiness.” The brightness
which gleams through a good man’s life outshines the sun in its meridian
splendor.—Octavius Winslow
Holiness, or, quite simply, the state
of being sanctified (or set-apart from the world) unto God, is, I believe, that one trait
which I think distinguishes the follower of Jesus from any and every other person
on the face of the planet. While we are to
be known by our love (see John 13:35), the ever-present loving-kindness of God,
when it is expressed in and through us as individuals, is enabled and channeled through the conduit of our own personal holiness.
God, Who is holy by definition, is set
apart from all creation unto Himself. We,
as redeemed children of God, are holy, too, by virtue of the declarative will
of Him Who has chosen to set us apart. To
be set-apart for service by God is an honor that is difficult to articulate adequately,
let alone, well. God, in His wisdom, holiness,
and loving-kindness, has chosen to use us to fulfill His holy
purposes in creation. We have been
"branded" by Him to live-in to His plan to bring about the
reconciliation of all things. When I
write of this branding, it is my desire to convey the following similar, and yet different,
thoughts: (1) I believe we are branded by God for
identification similar to the way in which a shepherd or rancher might brand livestock;
and (2) I believe we are branded by God with His holy Name in a manner similar to the way a textile manufacturer
might brand a line of clothing. The seal
(or branding insignia) of God, however, is His Blood, which cleanses us, His Word,
which He has written upon our hearts, and His Spirit, Whom He has sent to live within
each of us.
Jesus, when He came to earth as a man,
was branded by God for a very special purpose:
Principally, to make a way for humanity to be reconciled to God
and, as such, to become "fully" human again.
Sin, as I wrote of in part one, has been cataclysmic to all of us. Its devastation is so systemic and
far-reaching that, without the work of God, all of us will remain, hopelessly
and forever, bound and chained to the continuous cycles of sin begetting death and death begetting more sin. Sin dehumanizes and kills us because, with
each sin we commit, we become less and less like God, Who is by definition Life. In a manner, all of us in our sin have become like monsters
and, as such, are in desperate need for God to do something for us that we
cannot do for ourselves: And that is, to
make us human again.
With respect to our branding, did you know that as
followers of Jesus we have been branded with the very same branding with
which Jesus was branded? All of us—and there are no exceptions—have been
appointed (and anointed) to carry on Jesus' particular "brand"
of ministry in the world, and that is, of reconciling creation and making
things (especially people) whole again.
Holiness (set-apartness, brandedness)
is neither a practice nor a set of practices.
No. While it may (and,
most-likely, should) affect our behavior, it is not the behaviors themselves. Rather, it is an identification and a declaration/proclamation. And it carries with it a sentence: The universal,
take-up-your-cross-and-follow-Me (Jesus) sentence that calls each of us to die to ourselves and
to the world so that we might be used by God to help redeem humanity and to infuse
the abundant life of God back in to everyday living.
Try as you may, if you are a follower of
Jesus, you cannot escape this sentence. Just
as it was carried out in Jesus' life, so, too, will it be carried out in yours. And in mine. While the general term
"sentence" may carry a negative connotation, the "sentence"
that follows upon your set-apartness by God is anything but negative. In fact, living-in to this particular sentencing brings with
it the greatest of all delights: The
fullness that comes with identifying with Jesus through the surrendering of your
life unto Him. There really is no greater
honor, my friends. Or calling. Your branding, your set-apartness, God's
declaration of holiness over you, will and should affect who you are and how you live-out the
remainder of life here on earth.
Prayer of Holiness
Holy Father...
There is no one like
You. You stand alone in Your uniqueness
as all things are for You and find their existence and continuance in You. Thank you, Father, for setting me apart, for
declaring me holy and consecrated unto You and for Your service. Dear God, I choose in this moment to take up
my cross and to follow Jesus in His Ways of set-apart-ness. May I indeed be a conduit of your reconciling
power in the world, and may my knowledge of all this affect everything I do and
say throughout the course of my life.
I ask all of this
in the Name of Jesus of Nazareth, my Lord and Savior, and the Author and
Finisher of my life and faith,
Amen.
In the next post, I will, Lord-willing, continue
writing of these things by exploring a few significant ways in which Jesus'
set-apartness affected how He approached His own life as a human being. I want to do this because these things are what
I believe made Jesus so beautiful. In my heart, I feel that these very things are the essential ways
of living and being that can enable us to reclaim our rightful place as
image-bearers of Elohiym.
Until then, may God's peace be with all of you...
Dave
The path of reclaiming God's
image is, I believe, found in following Jesus, and, through such a following, reconciling
with our own humanity. As paradoxical as
this might read, I am convinced that the more we become like Jesus in His
humanity, the more truly God-like we become.
Our humanness is intended to be one way in which God manifests Himself uniquely in the universe: Through the form of a human soul, or spirit-body,
that adds a physical dimension to the divine that, until mankind was created, could
not be grasped by any previously created beings (including the angels). As the scriptures read, "The angels long
to look into such things." (see 1 Peter 1:12). We as humanity are a metaphoric expression of
Who God is. Our love, creativity, and physical
labor echo God's lovingly creative work and allows those who observe such
things to have a finite example (one that they can wrap their minds around) of
the infinite loving-kindness, creativity, and "work ethic" of Almighty
God.
The greatest human ever to walk the earth was Jesus of
Nazareth, the God-Man, Who created everything that exists and then submissively inserted
Himself into the Story that He Himself authored. Many scriptures point to this very reality; a
few, of which, are provided below:
The
people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land
of the shadow of death a light has dawned.
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will
be on his shoulders. And he will be
called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace
there will be no end. He will reign on
David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice
and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish
this.—Isaiah 9:2, 6-7
In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him
nothing was made that has been made. In
him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the
darkness has not understood it. The Word
became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One
and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, “This was he of whom I
said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’” From the fullness of his grace we have all
received one blessing after another. For
the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God the One and
Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.—John 1:1-5, 14-17
In
your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not
consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather,
he made himself nothing, but taking the very nature of a servant, being made in
human likeness. And being found in
appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even
death on a cross!—Philippians 2:5-8
He is
the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and
invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were
created by him and for him. He is before
all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he
is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he
might have the supremacy. For God was
pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself
all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace
through his blood, shed on the cross.—Colossians 1:15-20
In
the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in
various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he
appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and
the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful
word.—Hebrews
1:1-3a
When
asked to describe God's character and nature, many will use words like "loving", "just", "holy", "all powerful",
"all knowing", and "everywhere present". When describing His positional loftiness, many
of the same people will acknowledge that He is Lord and King over all, that He
is the Master of the universe, and that He is the Shepherd and Husbandman of souls. How, I ask, are these things manifested in
mankind? To answer this question, we
must look at Jesus, for, as I wrote above, Jesus is our Prototype, and it is
He, Who, in His humanness, models for all of us what it means to be an image-bearer
of Elohiym.
In the scriptures, we read in Hebrews 12:2a, "Let us
fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith"; and, along
the same lines, in 2 Corinthians 3:18, we read, " But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of
the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the
Spirit of the Lord." To reclaim our
true humanity as image-bearers, we must look unto Jesus intently and see Him as
He is. As marvelous as it might seem, we
become like that which we focus upon. Unlike
any other machines or organisms on earth, we can service ourselves, evolve, and
shape how and why we operate the way we do.
Ultimately, the key to this shaping is found in Jesus, and, more specifically,
in our "seeing" (or "beholding") Him as He is. For, as the verse above in 1 Corinthians 3 indicates,
transformation within us occurs as we do this very thing. With all this in mind, I would like to spend
the next little while looking a little closer at Jesus, the One Who is, I am
convinced, the definitive representation of what God intended for all of us when
He made us.
Stay tuned for Part 2!!
Peace...
Dave
