Sanctify the Lord in our Midst

Sanctify the Lord in our Midst
10/20/06
Lately the Lord has been saying a phrase to me; “Sanctify the Lord in your midst”. I found that the failure to do so is brought up in the incidence of Moses striking the Rock (Nu 20:9-12). He did not trust God to be Holy, and therefore smote Him when he smote the rock. This caused Moses and Aaron to forfeit possession of the Promised Land. We must honor God as holy (Nu 27:14). When we make God look bad, we blaspheme His name amongst the Gentiles (Rm 2:24). How do we make God look bad? If we condone sin and perform it while we name His name, we falsely represent His values. If we do not trust Him to be holy we falsely represent His nature.

God’s plan for our lives includes possession of His promises; the Promised Land. It is there where the Gentiles, or unbelievers, will see a people who represent God. We become a light to those in darkness when we sanctify God in our midst. For this reason God deals with our immaturity, foolishness, and sin so that He might have a people who establish Him as holy in the earth. God is honored when we trust the goodness of His nature and represent Him through holy lives.

It is not often that I think about how I make God look. Do I make Him look good, or bad? Since we try to avoid judging others by appearances, I sometimes forget to look at how I represent the Lord. A worldly example of this concept of appearances is found in “Men in Black” when Will Smith, wearing his new black suit and shades, says “I make this look good”. He was saying that he brought his own good looks to the suit, enhancing it. Though we might laugh at Will for his presumptuousness and conceit, there is something spiritual that emerges from his statement; we have the ability to make what we wear on the outside look good.

Our clothes can also make us look bad. The concept of sanctification included washing one’s clothes in the days of the pilgrimage to the Promised Land. The Lord asked Moses to instruct the people to wash their clothes and be ready for His appearance on Mt. Sinai (Ex 19:10). This represents a spiritual concept, carried into the New Testament through instructions to keep our garment unspotted by the flesh, without spot or wrinkle (Jude :23; Eph 5:27). We see that the Lord doesn’t want us to defile our garments (Rev 3:4) with spiritual fornication. He instructs us to “keep” our garments which He clothes us with; the robes of salvation (Rev 16:15). These robes are washed in His blood, and made white. We are sanctified. How then do we make God look good? This is seen in the picture of the Bride of Christ, dressed in fine linen, bright and clean (Rev 19:7). She is the treasured possession of the Lord, dressed for Him (Rev 21:2). As the wife is the glory of the husband (1 Cor 11:7), so the Bride is the glory of the Christ. In her purity, she makes Him known for Who He is. Her just representation of the Lord sanctifies Him to those around her. In Jesus words “Blessed are those who wash their robes that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city” (Rev 22:14).

If we follow the Israelites through their journey to the Promised land, we find that those who rebelled did not enter in. But those who obeyed Him became His people. They represented Him, even though for a short time, to the rest of the nations. Now, in our lives, we have the challenge to enter into God’s promises, establishing Him before the nations. Let us sanctify the Lord in our midst so that they will come to His light. Amen.