Learn What Holy Is

Ezekiel 44:23-24 - They are to teach my people the difference between the holy and the common and show them how to distinguish between the unclean and the clean.  " 'In any dispute, the priests are to serve as judges and decide it according to my ordinances. They are to keep my laws and my decrees for all my appointed feasts, and they are to keep my Sabbaths holy.

 

The vision that Ezekiel was having continued as they came back toward the east entrance gate.  God had closed it forever. Even the prince and priests would have to enter through another gate.  He reminded Ezekiel how some of the priests had broken God’s heart when they had allowed the people around them to lose faith to the point of learning other ways of worship….then began to teach those ways to the chosen people of God.

 

When they returned from captivity…the priests would be held accountable for all their actions.  They would have to learn what holiness was…then teach it to the people. They would need to teach the people of God the difference between holy and secular….right and wrong….and model it to the people that they had been charged to judge and offer sacrifices for.

 

My first thought was that God passed that duty on to me when he allowed his son to pay the high price of death to provide me with salvation. I became my own priest…..and the priest of my family when I decided to follow him in faith. It is now my duty to learn what holy is….so I can discern what is right and what is wrong in God’s eyes.

 

Philippians 1:9-10 records Paul’s prayer of hope for all believers… “ And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight,  so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ,” He said that so that we would rise to knowledge for our own growth…but I am sure that he was also thinking of the many God would call to take his place as teacher of the word after God had finished using him.

 

We are all to become teachers of God’s word in some way.  It may be by modeling his love and holiness to the others he allows to cross paths with us.  It may be his intention that we grow so confident in his word that we can teach a formal class or Bible study to others. It may just be the difficult job of teaching our children and family members God’s word so that they will grow to love God as much as we do.

 

Father...thank you for the reminder that I need to constantly update my heart’s knowledge of you so that you can use me to help the people you have placed around me.  Forgive me for the times that I have settled for what I already know…or not applied the things that you are teaching me in my daily times with to my own growth of faith.  Help me to internalize everything I study so that I may become confident in every task you lay before me. Amen.