I was considering Ps. 27, and I noticed a couple of things. First, David expresses both a phenomenal faith and a some fearful lamentation. So often I can feel both at the same time, and it is a real battle to end on the side of faith as David does here.

But there is something else. When David expresses his faith, he is speaking about God. He is speaking to others (or himself) about how great and faithful is God, and He makes it personal – “I may dwell in the house of the Lord… He will hide me … He will lift me high.” Yet when he laments his situation and expresses his anxiety, he is speaking to God alone. He doesn’t rattle anyone else’s faith with his doubts and pleas, but he does feel free to be completely honest with God.

In light of this, I will endeavor to follow this pattern – express the faith to others, build them up in their most holy faith, even as I continue to honestly pour out my fears, anxieties, and pleas to God Himself. I don’t have to remind God how faithful He is, and I certainly cannot hide from Him how afraid I am!

Spread your garment over me -

Wrap me in the ancient folds,

Your cloak of Lordship smoothed

And wrinkle-free,

Soft and aromatic, full of Spring.

And I crawl

In warm security

Breathing deep as those who slumber well

And sigh

Beneath the sovereignty

of my King.

There is an aspect of holiness that I am beginning to see in the Word, but I have not heard expounded elsewhere.  Maybe I just haven’t been listening closely, but now that I am becoming aware of it, I am taking a fresh look at sanctification.  “Be holy as I am holy.”[1] I have heard this my whole life, and I have made a pretty good stab at living it as I understood, though not always successfully.  My understanding of holiness was two-fold.  First, there is the imputed holiness, that righteousness we receive in Christ at salvation as He takes our sin and clothes us in His holiness.  It is this holiness that allows us to enter the very presence of God with confidence.  Then there is the holiness that we walk out day to day, making choices to go this way instead of that, to NOT be conformed to the world but be transformed in the renewal of our minds.  It is this holiness that has taken on new meaning for me.

I guess I saw holiness like the Ten Commandments – a flat, two-dimensional rock engraved with a bunch of do’s and even more don’ts.  But it was a wonderful list in that it taught me how to be pleasing to God.  So, recently this rock that I thought was flat and broad has begun to turn a bit, and I am seeing a depth I couldn’t see from the front.  It started in the Holy of Holies, where I am to enter boldly.[2]  This most sacred place holds the key to God’s definition of holiness.  If He is going to create a room and call it the Most Holy Place, it stands to reason that its nature and contents would have holy significance.

Behind the veil

This room in the Old Testament temple represented the most sacred place on earth, the only place God’s glory dwelt, and it could be entered but once a year, only by the High Priest, and not without a blood sacrifice for both his sins and those of the people.  There was a Holy Place that could be entered daily by the priest, but the Most Holy Place was strictly limited.[3]   First, by God’s design this place could only be entered by invitation, by a man chosen by lot.  Second, even though he was invited to come, he had to make preparations before entering.  He had to offer a sacrifice, taking a life and sprinkling the blood in the room and on the objects there to cover even the unintentional sins of the people and himself.  If he did not first offer a sacrifice, he himself would lose his life.   

Second, this room in the Old Testament temple held a few very specific things.[4]  There was the golden altar of incense where the High Priest would burn the holy incense once a year.  This represents the pleasing aroma of intercessory prayer, of one praying for the benefit of another.  Then there was the amazing mercy seat of pure gold that perfectly fit atop the Ark of the Covenant, as the redemptive mercy of Christ completely covers the requirements of the Law, and above all that were the cherubim who wait on God, serving His bidding and offering Him unending praise and worship.

The Ark of the Covenant is very revealing itself.  It contained three articles.  First was some of the manna from the Israelites’ desert years – evidence of God’s kind provision to sustain a wayward people.  Also this is where the tablets were kept on which were engraved the requirements of the first covenant, a revealing of who is the great I AM and what pleases Him.  The third article in the Ark was Aaron’s staff, a memorial of God choosing someone to represent the people before Him.  This family, the descendents of Levi, sacrificed an earthly inheritance among the people in that they did not receive a portion of land as their own.  The Lord was their inheritance.  They offered sacrifices and were responsible to instruct the people well in God’s Law, and from them was chosen that one man each year to risk his very life to stand in their place in the Holiest of Holies.

The common thread

In all these symbols there is one common thread – sacrifice.  From the animal sacrificed before entry to each item within the room, the Most Holy Place represented in every possible way, the sacrifice of God for man, of man for God, and the sacrifice of man for man.  This room echoed the two Greatest Commandments – love God above all, and love your neighbor as yourself.  It was a completely selfless room, which is why the earthly version could be entered so rarely, only by invitation, and at great peril. Selflessness is not natural for us.

Remember the Sabbath

The Fourth Commandment demands that we keep the Sabbath holy.  The Pharisees had one understanding of this, but during His life on earth Jesus repeatedly shattered the accepted definition and laws of His day pertaining to the Sabbath.  Jesus often did miracles on the Sabbath.  He healed or cast out demons, and it was a huge issue with the Pharisees.  Their understanding of the fourth Commandment was that to keep the Sabbath holy a person was to do no work at all.  If someone wanted to be healed, let them come some other day.  Holiness was vital, and Jesus could not be holy if he were going around healing and delivering people from demons on the Sabbath.   “Like everything else He touched, Jesus put this law into its true position and light. He rescued it from the hands of the Scribes and Pharisees and showed it as God would have us esteem it, a day of holy rest, holy service and merciful works.”[5]  I believe Jesus was not only showing us what the Sabbath was to look like, but in these acts of sacrifice (for it cost Jesus power and reputation to heal someone) He was also giving us a visual example of holiness.

So, what I see in all the above is this very interesting twist, that holiness is purity, and purity is selflessness.  Anything holy, anything sanctified, is a thing (or life or moment or place) that is not me-focused.  That includes my body, not my own but a temple of the Holy Spirit.[6]  It includes my finances, of which I am merely a steward.[7]  It includes my time, which I must guard for the days are evil.[8]  The reason God did not permit the people to work on the Sabbath is because working, while essential and blessed the other six days, is still a self-benefitting act.  We increase our income, grow our business, add to our barns, so to speak.  The Sabbath is not for any of that.  Beyond being a blessed rest we desperately need, it is holy and so must be selfless.

When I aspire to be holy as Christ is holy, I am committing to laying down my life, my success, my plans and aspirations, my self-pleasing ways in favor of a God-centered, others-focused life.  What an honor and privilege!

There is a song entitled “What Do I Know of Holy,” and the words have resonated with me for many months now.  As the song says so eloquently, “Where have I even stood but the shore along your ocean?”  I stand on this shore staring at a vast sea of love, salty with the holiness of sacrifice, and I long to explore its depths and breadth, to feel it all around me and float in its vastness.  The paradox is that the very hedonism of these desires will be satisfied only in the service and pleasure of others.  This is who our God is, for His delight is in the sacrifice of Christ for the benefit of mankind.  This is holiness.

[1] 1 Pet 1:16

[2] Heb 4:16, 10:19-22

[3] Heb 9:1-7

[4] Heb 9:3-5

[5] http://www.evangelizationstation.com/Pamphlets/229%20Old%20Testament%20Sabbath.pdf

[6] 1 Cor 6:19-20

[7] Matt 19:11-26  This parable is minimally about finances, but reaches into other realms as well.

[8] Eph 5:15-16

I can so relate to David of the Bible.  I feel like I know him personally, like I’ll get to heaven and we’ll embrace like old friends and take a long walk to talk about this crazy life.  Really, the only reason I feel like I know him is because he allowed all of us to know him.  He understood that what God really wants is truth even in the inward being (Ps. 51:6), so he told the truth, good and bad.  In the process he became a man after God’s own heart.  I want to be known as that, but I don’t really want to be known.  Instead of being open about my failures and sins, I try to camouflage them.  I guess I figure if I deny or hide them, I’m lying, but if I just camouflage them it isn’t really lying.  Well, it isn’t really truth either.

 

I have met some amazing people, and the more I get to know them, the more I realize how very healthy David was.  These people have learned (and it was definitely a process) to be who they really are, all the time.  Not that they never put on masks like I wear most of the time, but when they look in the mirror and see someone else’s face they do something about it and take off the mask.  The result for me is that I feel more and more at ease around them, and – most amazing – I am more confident of God’s love for me.  My eyes are starting to open to just how much the Lord really loves and accepts me, and how that is really all that matters.

 

When I hide my sin, I am eaten up by it.  But when I simply acknowledge my sin, it hounds me and clings to me like a thick muck, turning hard and crusty.  I have to actually speak it as confession, and that to others, not just to God (James 5:16).  There’s the rub.  Add to the guilt a hefty fear of rejection, and you have the makings of a stagnant swamp – the kind of place where alligators love to hunt.  So, I either open up or get eaten up!  Ugh.  This walk is so stinking hard.

You know, I sit here thinking, “Great.  I blew it again.  What good am I to the Kingdom?  How can I ever be used by God?”  Because I did blow it again.  One of the scenarios in Psalm 107 fits me to a tee right now:

Psa 107:17-18  Some were fools through their sinful ways, and because of their iniquities suffered affliction;  (18)  they loathed any kind of food, and they drew near to the gates of death.

OK, I’m not so desperate as to hate food, and I am not at death’s door, but I was (and too often am) a fool in my sinful ways.  What’s more, there have been times when I felt my sin mounted up to Heaven itself, a monument to my folly.  During those times I have lost my appetite for food, for pleasure, even for life.  Here is where spiritual maturity is so vital, and where we discover how mature (or not) we are.

Condemnation is an insidious enemy who lies stealthily in wait like an alligator in the tall marshy grasses.  He knows sin will come along, because we carry it within us, so he waits for us to mess up again.  As soon as we drift too far from our confidence in Christ’s completed work, he lunges, jaws wide.  Did you know gators do not always devour their prey when they catch it?  With larger prey, a gator will often entangle it in the grasses, having already inflicted serious wounds.  Then he simply waits for the bacteria he injected with his filthy teeth to finish the job.  He will go back to the dead prey days later and enjoy a meal that doesn’t fight back.  I read of a woman who escaped a gator only to die in the hospital from the bacteria that ravaged her body.  This is exactly Satan’s tactic when it comes to our sin.

Hebrews 5:12-14 rebukes the reader for not maturing in the faith, for being unskilled in the word of God.  The idea is continued in chapter six as he provokes the Hebrews to move on to maturity.  Then he introduces the alligator of condemnation.  Heb. 6:4 begins “For…” meaning because.  Here is the danger of not maturing and having a firm grasp of the word.  The immature enjoys all the goodness and delight of his new salvation, merely tasting the heavenly gift and the word, but not drinking deeply, searching it out, and obtaining a deep understanding.  Then he messes up.  He falls back into old sin habits and worldly patterns, but because he has not matured in his understanding of GRACE, he thinks it is impossible to be again restored.  To his untrained mind, it would be like crucifying Christ all over again – which in itself is impossible.  Christ died, once for all, the just for the unjust, and He completed (perfected) that work.  Knowing the shame and the pain Christ endured for him, he realizes he has shown Him contempt by sinning.

Do you hear the gator swishing through the rushes?   He sees easy prey, for the young are always easiest to catch.  Chomp!  Down come the jaws of condemnation, and if he is really successful he will be able to wrap this guy up in the rushes and let his own conscience do the rest.  As Heb. 6:6 says, it is to their own harm, because Christ is not harmed by our failures, nor is He the least shaken by them.  He defeated sin and death – past tense, perfect, complete.  But if we are not maturing in our faith, we don’t know that truth.  Our ignorance becomes our greatest enemy.

The longer I sit and think about how I blew it, the closer the predator can get and the greater the danger.

This blog is based on Psalm 107 in which people find themselves in various difficulties – some because of poor choices, others from wrong priorities, still others from sin.  Yet in each and every circumstance, when they cried out to Lord in their distress, He answered them and delivered them.

The last few years have been full of such distresses for me, for each of the reasons above and others besides.  I hope that in sharing my experiences, views, ideas and revelations, others may discover their own way to that harbor that is Christ.  I long ago set my heart on pilgrimage, to go from glory to glory until I appear before the Lord, but I never realized that glory is the peak of a mountain.  If I am to go from peak to peak, I have to cross at least as many valleys as mountains.

Psalm 107 depicts people who found themselves in various difficulties – some because of poor choices, others from wrong priorities, still others from sin.  Yet in each and every circumstance, when they cried out to Lord in their distress, He answered them and delivered them.

When we find ourselves in various distresses, our cries are often full of confusion, anger, entitlement, or indignation, or we grovel and plead as if we were beggars instead of royal children.  There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to overcoming, but there are some very good positions from which to approach it and some very bad ones.  The last few years have been full of such distresses for me, for each of the reasons above and others besides.  I hope that in sharing my experiences, views, ideas and revelations, others may discover their own way beyond tragedy and hardship through Christ.