Caleb :: Holy Man Of God

Holy Man Of God

Picture yourself in church. You've probably got a time early on in the service where the service stops for a minute or two to greet each other. Picture that time, but picture it like this. The pastor mixes things up a bit and asks you to great each other as holy men of God or holy women of God. I really think most people in my church would flip out, stutter a bit, pretend he was kidding and say something about the weather, or maybe say the words easily but not mean it at all.

I think this state of afairs is a shame because we are called to be holy. If we cannot greet our brothers and sisters as holy, we've got a problem. That is what we are supposed to be. Holy, set apart, dedicated to God, reserved for Him. Christ has called us out of the world and washed us clean in His blood so that we might be called holy. In John 17 Christ is praying for believers and proclaims that we are not of the world and asks the Father to sanctify us by His truth (His word). He says that He sanctified Himself that we might be truly sanctified.

If we as believers have been washed by the blood and purified from all unrighteousness then why do we still treat each other and ourselves as unworthy. Why do we live as if we are in constant need of new forgiveness and never accept the purification we have been given and live as children of the Light? Why can we not turn to the guy next to us and say "Dave, holy man of God, get any snowboarding in this week?". "Good morning Kay, holy woman of God, I've been praying for you this week." "George, holy man of God, what a blessing your message was this morning. What do you mean by abiding in Christ?"

I submit that it is because we are not abiding in Christ as we ought. We continually come to the door and knock, never entering past the doorstep. We come to church on sunday needing to open the door all over again because we have gone our own way every week. We do not greet each other as brothers in Christ and holy vessels of righteousness because we still live our lives as if we were still slaves to the world and not slaves to Christ. We are all sinners and still are trapped by our sinfull natures even if we are set free in Christ, and no matter how great our failings, Christ's blood has covered it all.

If we think that we cannot call ourselves holy due to any failings on our own part we are undermining the power of the blood of Christ. It is just as able to cover the greatest of sins as it is the least. Let's get off of the doormat people! If you have accepted Christ as your personal Lord and Savior then you are covered by His blood. Your body is now a temple of the Holy Spirit, and your conscience has been set free to serve the living God. Asking forgiveness and repenting will be continually necessary as long as we live in a fallen world, but the price has been paid and God sees us only through the blood of His Son, and we are white as snow.

When the prodigal son came home, he got on his knees, asked for forgiveness and a job as a hired hand. He knew he was a sinner and unworthy of any honor, but although that is not the end of the story that is where we leave ourselves every week -- still stuck at the worst part of the tale. We forget that we are children of God, and as the father in the story picked his sun up, put a robe on him, killed the fatted calf and gave him a place of honor, so our father in heaven stands ready to pick us up and cover us with love and blessings.

Let us live as holy men an women as God. Let us greet each other has holy men and women of God as a reminder to each other that of what we are.

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I think there are several related subjects that I could write on that go along with this. One is church discipline - and the nature of the body of Christ. What do we do with people who do not know Christ but are seeking him, and what do we do with people who claim to know Christ but are not seeking him. Another would be my pet peaves with generic answers to the perpetual "how are you doing?" question. Someday I'll add those things. Meanwhile I'd love to discuss them with anybody.

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Comments? Feel free to add them here or email me.

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Caleb Maclennan

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