I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy… I am the Lord who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy (Leviticus 11:44a, 45 NIV).
We often try to define sin. Actually it is an attempt to find out if there is any possible way to make our sins appear as if they are not sins at all. Sometimes we try to avoid sin.
Here the motives may be to be seen as good by someone else, or the fear of being caught or some pain that might occur in the act of sin itself. But in the long run these motives will not help us live a life of purity!
It these motives don’t help, then what should be our real motive in aiming for a pure life? The first thing is our relationship with God Himself. God says, “I am the Lord your God.” That means we are His; totally and absolutely belonging to Him.
We should consciously accept this sense of belonging to God and act in accordance to this belief. Often we find it easy to sin because we forget that God has staked a claim on our life by saying “I am the Lord your God.”
The second thing that stems out of the sense of belonging is the fact that God is calling us to consecrate ourselves to Him. Again this calls for a conscious setting apart of ourselves to God.
It is actually making a standard to be set before us at all times that reminds us that we are separated from the world to belong to God. The Israelites were thus redeemed out of slavery in Egypt to serve the living God.
In the light of both God’s claim and our consecration, we aim to be holy because God is holy. Remind yourself that this is the only proper motive which can keep you holy!
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