Let’s talk about being holy. To be holy means to be “set apart” or “consecrated” or “sanctified”. The word consecrated means to devote solemnly to a purpose and sanctified means to set free from sin. The word holy also can designate “that which is holy”, a sanctuary, which refers to God.  During my conversations with the Lord this past week He gave me four words that describe what we must have in order to live a life that is holy; four words to help us learn how to be holy as He is holy.

HUMBLE: We must humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord. (James 4:10) In other words we must acknowledge that we are lower than God and that He alone deserves glory and honor. Our lives should exemplify His love and presence.   His Word should always be the “final word” in our lives, which means we are not truly humble before Him until we are obedient to Him.

OBEY: To obey simply means to submit to the authority of another. In Romans 6:16 we are told that whomever we present ourselves to – obey – we are that one’s slaves, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness. This Scripture makes it very clear that there are results to our actions and words, to every decision in every area of our life. Everyone is held accountable for their own actions, whether good or bad. Even to the point of being accountable for our words, even idle words. (Matthew 12:36)  We are not completely obedient to Him until we are living for Him.

LIVE:  Each person must decide for themselves the kind of life they want to lead. Philippians 1:27 instructs us to let our conduct be worthy of the Gospel of Christ. We are to examine ourselves as to whether or not we are in faith. We compare ourselves with the Word not with each other. We cannot totally be living for the Gospel until we are yielding ourselves to the authority of God’s Word.

YEILD: We must live a life that is yielded to the Will of God, which is of course the Word of God.  To yield means we are submissive and surrendered to Him. We put aside our selfish will and desires for the will and desire of our Lord. According to Deuteronomy 12:28 we are to observe and obey all these words which God commands us. We will only be able to do this as we learn His Word and that comes by reading the Bible daily. We must decide each day who we will serve; Joshua 1:8 tells us to meditate on the Book (the Bible) day and night that we maybe observe and do according to all that is written in it. Then we make our way prosperous and will have good success.

My prayer for you this week (and for myself) is that we will seek the face of God allowing Him to show us anything in our heart that is displeasing to Him; that we will humble ourselves, obey, live and yield our lives to Him that we may bring glory and honor to Him, that the True Light of Jesus so shines in our lives that others are drawn to Him.