Be Holy
By Terance Clark May 10, 2025 6 Minute Read
Week 29 – 30
This Weeks Passage: Leviticus 16:1 – 20:27
I grew up in a Pentecostal denomination where we were told that we were supposed to live holy lives, and they had list of things that we did to be considered proof that one was holy. Unfortunately, the list wasn’t always completely clear, nor agreed upon by everyone, and through the years the list changed. You know what I mean, numerous things like if you danced you were not holy while others said no dancing is okay. In Leviticus 19:1 God told Moses to tell everyone that they are to be holy as He is holy. That is a huge shift because it means that holiness was not just for the priests or the sacrifices it was for the entire community of Gods people. Talk about pressure, how in the world does an entire group of people become holy? This weeks passage teaches us about holiness. Let’s jump into it.
We Are Set Apart For A Purpose
I’m not going to concentrate on things because let’s face it, if something was holy in 1900 but no longer holy in 2000 we’ve probably missed it. Holiness was not some kind of sliding scale. Like most things in scripture holiness begins with a change of heart and attitude that drives the way I live not the other way around. The Hebrew word Kadosh is translated as “holy” and really means “separate” or “set apart”. This word is introduced to us in Genesis 2:3 when God created Shabbat or the seventh day and He made it “holy or set apart”. The opposite of holy is to be common or regular. To be holy means you’ve been separated for a special purpose that’s it.
“Holiness begins with a change of heart and attitude
that drives the way I live“
When we understand the creation story we need to recognize that God was taking chaos and bringing order to it. He took six days of chaos and brought order through creation so when He created the seventh day it was to be a day of complete order without chaos. It was a special day because it was created to be separate from the others. A day of transparency to allow unhindered fellowship with us. The idea of holiness is that we are set apart to be different from others through the relationship and connection we have with the Father. We don’t do things to be holy, we are holy and therefore we act and do things differently and there is a huge difference between the two. The first does things to be accepted, but the other is accepted and therefore chooses to do things a different way.
Thinking Differently
There is a lot of confusion about the list of things that God gives that is associated with being holy. It’s really easy to think that if we just do the list that will make Him love and accept us, but that is not what the list was for. The list helped provide context to the way we should think and behave around each other and the way we interacted with unbelievers. As we see when Jesus teaches the people in the sermon on the mount found in Matthew 5 and Luke 6 He was wanting them to understand it was more about attitude and a change of heart. He wasn’t telling them to poke out eyes and knock out teeth when he said and eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. He was telling them to be fair in their judgments. The punishment needed to fit the crime, He was dealing with the heart of people and the way they were executing justice.
We know that we are sanctified and made holy by the blood of Jesus and there is nothing on our part that can make us holy, but we do play a role in maintaining that holiness as the people of God. God sanctifies and makes holy and then He tells us to keep it holy. So in other words God makes us holy, but we can neglect the boundaries that He has set and profane the holiness that He has established. Being holy means that we must obey His commands and by doing so we remain holy.
“God sanctifies and makes holy
Then He tells us to keep it holy”
This week we learn that holiness is not given to a few pious individuals nor is it a list of do’s and don’ts that we perform. When we live without integrity we are said to profane the name of God. When we live no differently than the common and ordinary person we break the boundaries of holiness. Holiness takes an entire community of believers who love God and one another and choose to live with integrity, caring for the poor and providing fairness to all people even when it means standing up against what the world believes. We are called a kingdom of priests a holy and righteous nation. The people of God, a holy people that is made holy by the blood of the lamb, but who also chooses to be holy.
