JEHOVAH – M’KADDESH!

JEHOVAH – M’KADDESH!

Lev 20:7-8

7 Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I am the Lord  your God.

8 And ye shall keep my statutes, and do them: I am the Lord  which sanctify you.

          I know it is a funny-sounding word but the Old Testament was not written in Elizabethan English but Hebrew which has a lot of hacking sounds. “Leviticus is the book of life, or walk and worship of a people already redeemed. Therefore sanctification is its most appropriate and important theme. It could not appropriately be presented till redemption was fully accomplished.”

(from Names of God, Copyright 1944 by The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago.)

          Sanctify means “to set apart for specific and exclusive use.” In the Passover, God purchased all the firstborn males from every Jewish family. They belonged to Him! “Sanctify unto me all the firstborn, whatsoever openeth the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and of beast: it is mine.” Ex 13:2 Worshipping any other God, even giving our lives to the service of pleasure, was idolatry and was spoken of as whoredom.

The term sanctify occurs frequently in the Old Testament Scriptures. The Hebrew word which it translates is also translated by other English words such as dedicate, consecrate, sanctuary, hallow, and holy, but especially by the word holy, and often by Holy One. In its various forms it appears some 700 times.” The Scriptures are clear that God wants us for His exclusive use and he wants us to reflect his nature and character. He wants us to be clean and pure.

It is God himself who does both the setting apart for service and the purification of His chosen. “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” Jeremiah 1:5 Because believers are “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4), God rightly expects us to be holy.

1 Thess 4:3

3 For this is the will of God, even your sanctification.

1 Thess 5:23

23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Dear Lord, help me to remember today that I am not my own and have been set apart for your specific and exclusive use. Help me also to remember that I am a partaker of your divine nature and that I am indwelt by your Holy Spirit. Let me live my life today as a child of God. AMEN