Today, I would like to expand on the this theme of Holiness. As Christians our holiness is key to our sanctification. The more we are holy in our lives the more we are pleasing to Christ. It is His desire for us to become sanctified and more like Him. Hebrews 12:14 says, "Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord."
Holiness in Speech.
As Christians the Lord wants us to have holy mouths. What we say with our lips reflects what is in our heart. Mark 7:20, "And He was saying, "That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man." We must be extremely careful to guard our mouths lest we say something that dishonours the name of our God. For us to better understand what it means to speak in a way that is pleasing t to the Lord, let us look at Isaiah Chapter 6. I had quoted verse 3 in my other post on holiness, but today I'm going to look at verses 1-5.
Isaiah 6:1-5
"In the year of King Uzziah's death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory." And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. Then I said, "Woe is me, fir I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts."
In this passage of Scripture Isaiah, who was Israel's prophet, sees a vision of the Lord God seated on His throne. In this vision, Isaiah is given a glimpse of the perfect Holiness of our God. Two Seraphim fly beside the throne of the Lord and constantly speak of God's holiness. At this point even the vision that Isaiah is seeing cannot contain the majesty and glory of God most High. The foundations tremble and shake and the temple is filled with smoke. As he sees all this Isaiah falls on his face and cries out that he is a man of unclean lips. The very prophet of God says that his lips are unclean! At this time in Israel, there were very few people who had clean lips, above any of them though, Isaiah should be the first to be declared 'clean'. Isaiah spoke the very words of God to the people and yet when was in the presence of God he fell as a dead man.
The reason for this is that he realized that his heart was unclean in the sight of God. The uncleanliness of the mouth comes from the heart. We have unclean mouths because our hearts are filled with sin. When we stand before a Holy God, all we can do is fall in humility and shame of our sinful hearts. What we need to do is turn to God and repent of our sinful practices. We must ask Him to cleanse our minds and hearts. James 4:8 says, "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double minded."
We must realise that to have clean lips, our hearts must be clean before God. What we put into our minds will flow out of our mouths. We need to have a daily input of God's Word so that our mouth will speak that which is true. Let us be committed to read, and listen to that which is true so that we would be honouring to our God and be able to serve Him with our entire lives.
Blessings,
Lucas C.
No comments:
Post a Comment