I recently posted A Prayer for Holiness based on Judges 19:22-20:48. In the introductory remarks to that prayer I'd written:
In this passage of Scripture we read how Israel went to war against Benjamin because some Benjamites had sexually abused a Levite's concubine who later died as a result of their abuse.
I would like us to consider and reflect upon the perseverance of the Israelites in battle and what we can learn from their example, and then turn those things into prayers for perseverance for ourselves, so we might keep God's command to us to persevere. Because there are three things I would like to draw your attention to in the Judges passage, Lord willing, I would eventually like to post three separate prayers based on this passage of Scripture; today's post is focused on holiness. (I will add links below as I am able to post the prayers.)
I. A prayer for holiness. First, the children of Israel were clear about what sin was. So too ought to be praying for a clear vision of God's holiness and an increasing desire to be holy and to live holy lives. (This post.)
II. A prayer for unity. Second, the children of Israel were united in their efforts. So too we ought to be praying for God to protect the unity we have in Him and that we would endeavor to uphold the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
III. A prayer for continuing obedience. Third, despite defeat, the children of Israel continued to seek and prepare themselves to do God's will and followed through in obedience. So too we ought to be praying God would keep us seeking His face, that we might be diligent and vigilant and follow through in obedience to His revealed will for us.
In the past several days I've been reflecting and praying over what unity in the Body of Christ means.
We can disagree on the nonessentials of our faith, but we can never disagree on the essentials.
Unity in Christ never means we turn a blind eye to unholiness in our midst.
Paul exhorts both Timothy and Titus to watch their doctrine and their behavior.
Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.
–I TImothy 4:16
Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.
–Titus 2:7-8
From the time I began this blog I wanted it to be a place that would honor God. (Please see my post About this blog - why "tent of meeting"?)
When we allow unholy doctrine and behavior into our midst, we do not honor Him.
In short, there are two ways we can be unholy.
1. WE CAN BE UNHOLY IN OUR DOCTRINE.
If we don't all accept Christ as the chief Cornerstone, as the author and finisher of our faith, then we have no unity. The Gospel of Christ is the power unto salvation. There is no other power. The Spirit brings us life; we are dead apart from His life. We are made children of God by His working. Salvation from beginning to end is all of Him and none of us. We will never be righteous in our own power. In order to be saved we must submit ourselves to the righteousness God has provided for us through faith in Jesus Christ. The good works we do are all by Him, through Him and to Him, so He alone gets all the praise, honor and glory. God forbid this place of prayer, a place that is to bring praise, honor and glory to God alone and to our Savior Jesus Christ, is polluted and tainted by any other gospel. I am praying for protection over this place of prayer and hope you will also. I truly believe that God will not bless us if we bring Him strange fire or if there are any who hide away in his own tent false idols of doctrinal profession without regeneration, legalism, moralism, returning to the law and so forth.
2. WE CAN BE UNHOLY IN OUR BEHAVIOR.
I also believe God will not bless our efforts here if we continue to confess we are His but do not live like it, if we continue in known sin without being grieved by it, we have to question if the Holy Spirit of God dwells in us. If we have truly seen God as holy, we cannot help but see how our sin grieves Him. If we are God's and being conformed into Christ's image, our sin should grieve us more and more. We cannot say we truly know Christ's love for us and insist our sin doesn't matter. He died for our sin. He died to purify us from all unrighteousness by His blood. He died so we might have His Holy Spirit who dwells in us to make us holy. If we persist in known sin, if we continue to excuse or rationalize sin, we have to question whether we are truly His children or not. God forbid this place of prayer, a place that is to bring praise, honor and glory to God alone and to our Savior Jesus Christ is polluted and tainted by our sinful behavior. God will not bless us here if we continue to bow down idols of licentious and sinful lifestyles. And by sin, I'm talking all sin, not just sexual immorality, I'm including those sins we too easily overlook such as anger, rage, murmuring, impatience, jealousy and so forth.
Both types of unholiness are threats not only here but also in the Church at large. God's standards are the same today. God's Gospel has not changed: Salvation comes by grace through faith and not by works. And God's definition of sin has not changed: He continues calls us out to be a holy nation and to be holy as He is holy and He has given us the means to do so through His Holy Spirit.
We cannot abide impure doctrine and impure behavior in the midst of this place that is to be holy unto the Lord. If we come to Him unholy and impure in any way, He will not accept our prayers.
If I had cherished iniquity in my heart,the Lord would not have listened.Psalm 66:18
How are you cherishing iniquity in your heart?
While I was out walking recently I saw an end table ready for trash pick-up. Why was it put out to the curb for trash pick-up? Why was it discarded?
It had three legs.
What good is a table with three legs?
When we come with unholy doctrine, it's as if we're coming with to the Lord with three legs. When we come with unholy behavior, it's as if we're coming to the Lord with three legs. We're not whole. We'll never stand before a holy God.
Psalm 24 reminds us:
Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD?
And who shall stand in his holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
who does not lift up his soul to what is false
and does not swear deceitfully.
At times I think we've become so enamored with Christ as our "friend," which He is, but we tend to forget He is absolutely holy. How often do you think of Jesus like the Jesus we see in Revelation 1?
12 Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands,
13 and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest.
14 The hairs of his head were white like wool, as white as snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire,
15 his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters.
16 In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.
Do you have an understanding of Jesus like that? If not, then I ask that you ask God to reveal His holiness to you, the holiness Isaiah saw.
Should we not all not be responding to the holiness of God like John...
When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.
Oh, yes, I know we've come to Mt. Zion, not Mt. Sinai. We've been saved by grace through faith in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Our God has poured out His manifold mercies and lavish grace and love for us at the cross of Calvary. Nonetheless we are to approach Him as a holy God and have a holy fear of Him. Sometimes I venture to say that we've drunk a bit too much of grace and forgotten that Jesus drank the cup of God's wrath to the dregs for us. We've made grace cheap and forgotten about the righteousness of God which calls us to holiness. If we truly saw God as holy, holy, holy, how could we continue to sin and not be grieved by it and go back to the cross once again to repent and receive His forgiveness and cleansing?
When God's people insist on coming to Him full of sin and unholiness, unrepentant over our sin, harboring and bowing down to those hidden sins of lust in our hearts, He looks upon us as if we were Sodom and Gomorrah (this from Isaiah 1):
10 Hear the word of the LORD,
you rulers of Sodom!
Give ear to the teaching of our God,
you people of Gomorrah!
11 What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?
says the LORD;
I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams
and the fat of well-fed beasts;
I do not delight in the blood of bulls,
or of lambs, or of goats.
12 “When you come to appear before me,
who has required of you
this trampling of my courts?
13 Bring no more vain offerings;
incense is an abomination to me.
New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations—
I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.
14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts
my soul hates;
they have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.
15 When you spread out your hands,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers,
I will not listen;
your hands are full of blood.
Thanks be to God He gives us the remedy for our unholiness through the Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah's words remind us of the Lamb who was to come and give His blood to save us and purify us and make us a holy and blameless people for Himself.
16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
17 learn to do good;
seek justice,
correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless,
plead the widow's cause.
18 “Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.
19 If you are willing and obedient,
you shall eat the good of the land...
O, by the grace of God drawing us, let us be willing and obedient and go to Him to rid ourselves of all our idols, brothers and sisters, so we might eat the good of the land. Until we do, our sins will continue to separate us from Him.
20 but if you refuse and rebel,
you shall be eaten by the sword;
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.
We can have no true fellowship with the Father, Son and the Spirit so long as we persist in sin. We can say we have fellowship with Him, but we are only lying! And correspondingly, we can have no true fellowship with our brothers and sisters unless we have fellowship with Him. We can have no true fellowship unless we come to Him and receive the forgiveness and cleansing only He can provide. And then by His Holy Spirit at work in us, He will help us to become pure in our doctrine and our behavior, after all His will for us is sanctification. May He do for us which we are powerless to do! May He make us holy as He is holy so we might shine as lights in the world!
I John 1:5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
2:1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
2 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
3 And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.
4 Whoever says I know him but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him,
5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may be sure that we are in him:
6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
* * *
A PRAYER FOR UNITY
Father, Son and Spirit, one God in three persons,
You show us what perfect unity and harmony looks like in the Godhead.
In Judges 20 we see the Israelites uniting together and working together.
v. 1 Then all the people of Israel came out ... and the congregation assembled as one man to the LORD...
v. 8 So all the people arose as one man...
v. 10 now this is the thing which we will...
v. 11 So all the men of Israel were gathered against the city, united together as one man.
Holy Father, Spotless Lamb, Holy Spirit,
You are perfectly holy and perfectly united. We acknowledge have no unity apart from being united to You.
4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism,6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
–Ephesians 4:4-6
You are holy. We cannot say we have fellowship with You so long as we continue to be unholy in our doctrine and in our behavior. And we can have no fellowship or unity with our brothers and sisters so long as we are unholy in any way. Forgive us, forgive Your Church, as we have so often persisted in being unholy in our doctrine and behavior. May Your kindness bring us into Your light and show us our unholiness and lead us to repentance. Send Your Holy Spirit to purify us and make us holy so we might be a praise in the earth.
Holy Spirit, purify us and make us holy unto the Lord. Knit us together into You so we might work together as one man to You, O Lord. May we be a praise in the earth. Make us shine in the darkness. We confess we often look and act no differently than the world. Guard each of us and keep us from sin.
Holy Spirit, purify this place of prayer, this tent of meeting, and make it holy unto the Lord. Knit those who come together into You so we might pray together as one man to You. May this place be a praise in the earth. Make it shine in the darkness. Guard this place and keep it from sin.
May our doctrine never bring reproach to Your holy Name.
May our behavior never bring reproach to Your holy Name.
Have mercy on us. Protect this place of prayer. You are calling many of Your people to turn to You in prayer. May You give all You are calling ears to hear and grace to respond to Your call. May those You have called continue to persevere in prayer by Your great grace and mighty arm strengthening us to do so.
Amen.
Please add your prayers here for purity and holiness in your life and in this place as He leads you.
RSS Feed