Leviticus 19:1-2 ESV
1 Peter 1:14-16 ESV
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.”
“As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’”
To be holy is to be set apart by or for God and it is to be
separate (unlike, different) from the world. For the word translated as “holy”
means “likeness of nature with the Lord” because “different from the world”
(1). So, we are to no longer be like the world but we are now to be like Jesus.
We are to no longer take on the character of the world but we are to take on
the character of our Lord Jesus Christ. And we are to be holy in all our
conduct.
So, before we can be holy we need to be separate from the
world of sin. We are to no longer be conformed to the passions of our former ignorance.
We are to no longer be enslaved (addicted) to any sin. Sin is no longer to be
what we obey, especially habitually, but our Lord and his righteousness are to
be what we obey. If we are believers in Jesus Christ via God-given faith in
him, we are to no longer live like we did before we believed in Jesus.
Leviticus 19:4 ESV
Ephesians 5:5 ESV
“Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves any gods of cast metal: I am the Lord your God.”
“For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.” (cf. 1 Co 6:9-10; Gal 5:16-21; Col 3:5-6)
What does it mean to be sexually immoral? It isn’t just
about having sex with someone else outside of marriage. For you can be sexually
immoral just in your mind and in what you dream about or fantasize about. You
can be sexually immoral and an adulterer just by lusting after another to whom
you are not married. Or you can be sexually immoral by what you listen to or by
what you view or via self-gratification or via sex-texting, etc.
And sexual immorality is not confined to just heterosexual
relationships outside a marriage, but it includes homosexuality and many other
forms of sexual expression, some of which can be very perverted. And, again,
this doesn’t have to be live in person but it can be all in one’s own mind or
via the internet or texting or movies, videos, stories, music, and games, etc.
But if this is your practice, you will not inherit the kingdom of Christ and
God.
Leviticus 19:11 ESV
Ephesians 4:25-28 ESV
“You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another.”
“Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.”
Those who are engaged in sexual immorality, generally
speaking, are also those who lie about it. If they are married, and if they
claim to be Christians, they usually will do their sinning in secret and then
they will tell lies ahead of time and/or after the fact in order to cover up
and to disguise what they are doing in secret. But people tell lies for many
other reasons, too, but usually to cover up something else they are doing that
they want to keep secret.
But every time you lie, and every time you sin in secret and
you are not honest about what you are doing when no one else is looking, you
just give the devil a foot hold in your life. You just open that door wide for
him to tempt you into doing what he knows you want to do anyway. But merely
confessing wrongdoing does not constitute a change of heart or behavior. You
must turn away from the sin and follow Jesus in obedience.
Leviticus 19:12 ESV
Matthew 15:8-9 ESV
"You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.”
“This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” (cf. 1 Co 15:2, 58; 2 Co 6:1; Gal 3:4; Php 2:16)
Many people are professing faith in Jesus Christ and they
are claiming that Jesus is their Lord and Savior and that they are saved from
and forgiven of their sins and that heaven is now their eternal destiny. They
call themselves Christians. But many of them are not living what they profess.
Jesus is not their Lord for they are still master of their own lives and they
are still charting their own course regardless of what Jesus says they must do.
Many of them are following the teachings of other humans and
are not following the teachings of Christ. And these teachings of men are
teaching them that they can honor Christ with their lips but their hearts can
remain far from God. For they are teaching or they are implying that they can believe
(not defined) in Jesus, have their sins forgiven, and be on their way to
heaven, but that they don’t have to repent of sin or obey the Lord.
Leviticus 19:17-18
1 John 4:20 ESV
“You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”
“If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” (cf. 1 Jn 3:15; 1 Jn 2:9-11)
Hate is the opposite of love. Love does no willful or
deliberate or habitual harm to other people. So, if you say you love God or
that you love your spouse or your neighbors or your fellow Christians but then
you deliberately and habitually sin against God and others, then you are not
loving them. You are hating them. And you can’t make up for it by doing “good
deeds.” “Good deeds” are not going to cancel out deliberate and habitual sin
against God.
Some people habitually and deliberately sin against God and
other humans because of what is stored up in their hearts – things such as
hate, pride, spite, bitterness, revenge, unforgiveness, jealousy, lust, and greed,
etc. Yet, they will claim that they love God and that they love other humans. So
with their lips they profess one thing while in their actions they say
something completely opposite of love, and so that makes them to be liars.
And the thing of it is, if we claim to believe in Jesus
Christ and to love God and our fellow humans and yet we continue in willful,
deliberate, and habitual sin against God and against other humans, in spite of
what the word teaches, and in spite of some of those humans asking us to stop,
and so we are not walking in the Spirit in obedience to our Lord but we are
still walking according to the flesh, we will not inherit eternal life with
God.
But if we believe in Jesus, and we forsake our lives of sin
to follow him in obedience, and if we love God and others, we will have eternal
life.
[Lu 9:23-26; Jn 6:35-58; Jn
15:1-11; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; Eph 4:17-24; 1 Pet 2:24; 1
Co 6:9-10,19-20; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Tit 2:11-14; Jas 1:21-25; Rom 12:1-2; Php 2:12-13; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:5-10; Gal
5:16-21; Eph 5:3-11; Gal
6:7-8; Rom 2:6-8; Heb
10:26-27; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Matt 7:21-23; Ac 26:18; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15; Eph 2:8-10; Heb 12:1-2; Jn
6:44; 2 Pet 1:1]
Full
Release
An
Original Work / April 15, 2012
Walking daily with my Savior
brings me joy.
Loving Father; precious Jesus;
He’s my Savior and my Lord.
Gently leads me; follow Him.
I’ve invited Him within.
Now abiding in His presence,
oh, what peace.
From my self-life
He has brought me,
By His mercy, full release.
Hope and comfort,
peace and safety Jesus brings
When I daily bow before Him;
Obey freely; do His will.
Follow Him where’er He leads.
Listen to Him; His words heed.
Now obeying his words fully,
oh, what love
That He gives me
through salvation,
By His Spirit, from above.
Loving Father; precious Jesus,
He’s my friend.
With my Savior, by His Spirit,
I will endure to the end.
Share the gospel, tell what’s true.
Witness daily; His will do.
Tell the world of how their Savior
bled and died.
On a cruel cross He suffered
So that we might be alive.
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