7.31.10 "Ready to Sanctify"

"Ready to Sanctify"

2 Chronicles 29:1-36
Romans 14:1-23
Psalm 24:1-10
Proverbs 20:12

"Who may stand before the Lord? Only those with pure hands and hearts..." Psalm 24:3-4

Chapter 29 of 2 Chronicles is the story of Hezekiah becoming king of Judah. His father Ahaz had boarded up the temple and refused to allow people to worship. Hezekiah opened up the temple, and ordered the priests to clean it up. Then they had a great worship service offering burnt offerings and sin offerings.

There was a great response from the people to the point of the priests being short handed. verse 34 says, "But there were too few priests to prepare the burnt offerings, so their brothers the Levites helped them until the work was finished - and until more priests had reported to work - for the Levites were much more ready to sanctify themselves than the priests were."

That last part of the verse caught my attention. I don't know enough about the Jewish law and custom to know the full detail of what it means to be "ready to sanctify" yourself, but to me it says alot. What does it mean to be ready to sanctify?

To me it means there is an anticipation of what God is going to do. There's a preparation of heart that happens so that when the time comes, we are in a position for God to do his work in us. Several weeks ago we talked about being prepared to come into the worship service on a Sunday. This is the same message.

Imagine the different approaches to the sunday morning service. You can come in as an observer, intent on watching everything, developing a critical overview of the people and happenings around, determined to stay disconnected from the work God may be trying to accomplish in you. You can approach the service religiously: this is a ritual. The next thing on the to-do list. Get the kids to nursery, get the donut in sunday school, say hi to friends, and get out the parking lot in good time. Or, you can come with a heart that is prepared to worship, with a focus on celebrating the Lord, and ready to allow God to move.

Which one is going to receive the most? Which one should we be?

Romans 14 is a great chapter on unity in relation to dealing with the standards we each have. "Give a warm welcome to any brother who wants to join you, even though his faith is weak. Don't criticize him for having different ideas from yours about what is right and wrong." (Rom. 14:1) The context is specifically about eating meat sacrificed to idols which was a point of contention in the early church. The chapter has a great discourse on how we need to prefer one another in this area, but it closes out with this verse: "But anyone who believes that something he wants to do is wrong shouldn't do it. He sins if he does, for he thinks it is wrong, and so for him it is wrong. Anything that is done apart from what he feels is right is sin." (Rom. 14:23)

Christians seem to be naturally ready and willing to "sanctify" others. We have hoops that we'd like to make each other jump through. That's not the point. We need to sanctify OURSELVES. God is working in each of us individually, and we need to respond individually with a readiness to give up that which he asks of us.

The Levites were ready to be sanctified. I want to be ready to hear from God today. To be used of God. When the body of Christ gets together for worship, take the time to prepare yourself for the move of God. He wont let you down!



Through the Power of the Spirit,
Live the DREAM!

P Greg


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