Be holy because
I, the Lord your God, am holy (Leviticus 19:2).
I used to dread this verse as an impossible command, a
requirement with which I could not comply. No matter how good my intentions or
committed my effort, it never achieved the desired result. As C. S. Lewis
writes in Mere Christianity, “No man knows how bad he is till he has
tried very hard to be good” [1]. The more I tried to change my behavior, the
more frustrated I became. My efforts seemed doomed to failure.
New Testament scholar Paul Achtemeier writes of Romans 7:15 (…what
I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.): “What Paul describes in these verses therefore is the dilemma
of all human beings who seek to follow God’s will apart from Christ” [2]. This
is my experience when trying to conform to Scripture relying only on my own
strength.
In his book Rebuilding
the Real You, Pastor Jack Hayford invites us to receive this verse
as a promise, rather than a threat. He illustrates how a child may inherit a
receding hairline, big feet, or a cleft chin, from a parent. God is our parent,
and God is holy. Holiness is in God’s DNA (so to speak). As his children, that
DNA is our inheritance [3]. We don’t have to scuffle and scheme to be holy; we
simply have to receive what, because of our parentage, is rightfully ours.
TODAY’S MEDITATION
Meditate on the significance
of sharing spiritual DNA with your heavenly Father? What’s that say for your
potential?
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