Towards A Vision of Holiness - David Mitts

but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior;
because it is written, "YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY."
(1Pe 1:15-16)
There is an instruction in the Scriptures to be “holy” to be given to a reality that is “one with the Lord”. The Lord speaks to “be holy for He is Holy”.
Now, for most of us this conjures up images of perfection or a purity that is at odds with the nature that we “know” of ourselves. In fact holiness scares us because the Scripture also tells us in Hebrews 12:14:
Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord:
(Heb 12:14)
So, the question that I ask in my heart, is what does God expect of me that will be called
holiness?
Well is we look in the Bible, we see that holiness involves:
-Being set apart. One example is the Shabbat.
-"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and
do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you
shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your
female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six
days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and
rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
(Exo 20:8-11)
-So the holiness spoken of with respect to the Sabbath is to set apart a day of our week and dedicate it unto the Lord. This means that of all of our time, there is an interval of time that is about the Lord. So, this is about boundaries, the separating of something from something else.

Listen to Message

-So, holiness, at least in one respect is about boundaries, learning to honor and separate things.
Now, one of the immediate problems, or challenges with that definition is that we start almost immediately operating in fear. We start erecting boundaries from things and people and situations that intrude into our holiness. Suddenly our lives go from the freedom of our salvation and the joy and power of the Holy Spirit into a life of trying to remain separate.
Yet are we wrong?? No, I don't think so. I just think it becomes a question of resource.
You see when my resource is myself and I am trying to be holy, then I have a problem in that my definitions will always be defined by my strength. SO, where is the cross in that?
You see, something fundamentally changed at the cross. What changed was resource.
Prior to the cross, there was a veil that separated us from where? The Holy of Holies.
This veil was torn at the cross.
And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. Then, behold, the
veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the
rocks were split, and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had
fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went
into the holy city and appeared to many. (Mat 27:50-53).
What actually happened here and what are the implications in our holiness? Well Yeshua gave up His Spirit, He died. The veil, the system of holiness by separation was also torn. Now, the veil didn’t just separate man from God. It also separated man from man, represented by the dead. The dead were unholy, the wages or price for sin. They were also separated from the living. Yet resurrection life was released at the cross and
the dead came to life.
So, this changes the separation thing of holiness. We cannot remain holy by remaining separate through our efforts. So, how do we enter into holiness?? I think the use of a veil is symbolic for something more profound.
What else wears a veil? A bride. Why does she wear the veil? It represents a kind of holiness, a purity of separation from all others and unto her husband. However all of that is in an identity, the identity that is outside of the new covenant of marriage of a giving of the heart. When the veil comes down there is a giving of the hearts in "holy union".
Now, let me ask you a question? In a marriage is separation holy?? Well yes and no.
Separation from others, yes. But what about from each other?? No. What is the motivation, the source? Isn't holiness now derived from something different?? Isn't holiness now fueled, empowered by love and even more important kept by love??
Now, what if the bride fueled holiness out of duty? or out of obedience to some set of standards because she is afraid to not please her husband, her lord?? Would we call that a covenant marriage??
Look now with me at Ephesians 5:22-33:
Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of
the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the
body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their
husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church
and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the
washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her
glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and
blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who
loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and
cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body.
FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL
BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH. This
mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.
Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself,
and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband. (Eph 5:22-33)
Now, most of us have been taught to use this scripture as guideline for marriage life, and so it is. But the Apostle Paul tells us that he is speaking about the relationship between Messiah and the Church. This then becomes an insight into holiness.
The key is in the word translated as church. It is ecclesia, which comes from the Hebrew kahal. In the Greek, the word means the called out from somewhere. But in Hebrew, the word means being drawn to authority. It is the picture of responding to the voice and the authority. It is actually a picture of intimacy. It is a holiness that is motivated by love.
You see holiness motivated by Law, by rules is a beginning, But holiness motivated and empowered by love is a transformational kind of holiness. Now, you can understand why Yeshua healed on the Shabbat. He was motivated by love.
You see, we began in love. We were saved by grace. But grace calls us to love. Then into this beautiful love, this honeymoon of being saturated with His Presence, hungry just to be with Him, to love Him with all of our being, not because it was commanded as the greatest commandment, but because it was all we could do. But over time, we grew calloused to Him. We exchanged the passion of the newly-wed for the life of the dutiful.
Holiness moved from what we knew from intimacy into what we learned from others.
Instead of drawing closer and closer into unity, we got busy. We got other agendas.
Most of them seemed good like Martha's serving. But what got sacrificed was holiness.
What got substituted was old covenant holiness, the struggle of separations. Some have even gone so far as to put back on veils. I don't mean pretty cloths. No I mean the
veils of facades.
Look with me at one more scripture and then we'll repent: Look at 2 Corinthians 3:2-18
You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men; being manifested
that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of
the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. Such confidence
we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider
anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us
adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter
kills, but the Spirit gives life. But if the ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones,
came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses
because of the glory of his face, fading as it was, how will the ministry of the Spirit fail to
be even more with glory? For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more
does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory. For indeed what had glory, in this
case has no glory because of the glory that surpasses it. For if that which fades away
was with glory, much more that which remains is in glory. Therefore having such a hope,
we use great boldness in our speech, and are not like Moses, who used to put a veil
over his face so that the sons of Israel would not look intently at the end of what was
fading away. But their minds were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the
old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ. But to this
day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart; but whenever a person turns to
the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the
Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory
of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from
the Lord, the Spirit. (2Co 3:2-18)
You see the greater glory is glory of the bride. You see Moses needed a veil because he had to separate himself from the people. But the veil of separation is removed in Messiah, in the new covenant in holiness motivated by love.
Now, I want us to pray and ask the Lord what veils we have put on. You know veils with each other are no different than veils towards God. They are strategies of separation of trying to protect our own heart. Let's repent for the veils.

A Vision for Holiness in an Age of Mammon - David Mitts

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 (NASB)

[23]  Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. [24] Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 

(Romans 12:1 NKJ)

We live in age where Mammon has invaded our lives in so many ways that we could actually say, we live in a soup of Mammon.  Our thoughts are bombarded, our bodies are poisoned, our spirits are being corrupted with the goal to lull us into a spiritual, mental, emotional and physical death.

Listen to Message

The Lord has not only called us to be spiritually identified with Him, even though this is our greatest need, no doubt.  But Abba has called us to present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to Abba, as a reasonable act of service.  The NASB translates this term "reasonable service" as "your spiritual service of worship".  The word here is the same as is used for the Holy Priesthood, the Cohens when they worship the Lord.

This means that our bodies and how we take care of them is as holy to the Lord as our songs we sing, our giving, our prayer time, our faith.  

Now, I know we don't want to hear this in our church context.  We want to give lip service to our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit but we want to put in them whatever we want, without thinking of that as sin against Abba.  

I believe the reason for this has to do  in part, with the word sacrifice.  Yeshua was our sacrifice.

But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, (Hebrews 10:12 NIV).

What is sacrifice all about?  Sacrifice, in a biblical context is about intimacy, love.  We are to be people of love, and of sacrifice: Look at Ephesians 5:1-8

Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. For this you know,  that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them. For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (Ephesians 5:1-8 NKJ)

We are called to walk, or have our walk be as children of the light.  This involves sacrifice.  Part of our love walk  our sacrifice is to present our bodies as a living sacrifice. What does this mean to us in a practical sense?

It means that we have a responsibility to treat our bodies with the same diligence we give to our other aspects of our believer life.  It means there is an accountability for a level of physical holiness.  

Now I am NOT talking about religion and self discipline.  Rather I am speaking about a greater standard, called love.  You see religion is all about boundaries and self discipline.  This is really a trap of Mammon.  You see Mammon gets us focussed on ourselves.  There is no sacrifice in this even when we do sacrifice things, we do it with a severe self focus and our goal is pride.  Because pride is rooted in shame, we carry the false image in our hearts of failure and try to overcome it with works.  A dismal plan of enslavement.  The best we can do in that system is self control which always makes us look down on others who can't or won't "control themselves".

So what is a living sacrifice?  It is an act of love.  An analogy is like someone who has a love for collecting something that they value.  How do they care of it?  Is it obedience?  Or is it a sacrifice of love? And..... What motivates that sacrifice of love?  The value they place on whatever it is!  It is a treasure to them and so love is released in loving sacrifice!

This is the attitude we are to have towards our bodies.  One of loving sacrifice.  This is true holiness, an act of love.  Let me show you this in Yeshua's words:

Matthew 6:16-24 (NASB)

Fasting; The True Treasure; Wealth (Mammon)

 [16] “Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. [17] “But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face [18] so that your fasting will not be noticed by men, but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

 [19] “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. [20] “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; [21] for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

 [22] “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. [23] “But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

 [24] “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon.

Now, he begins with speaking of fasting.  Fasting is a process of purification.  Fasting a a living loving sacrifice.  It is a Shabbat for the digestive systems are usually overworked in us.  Mammon wants to turn this into self discipline...  Mammon wants to turn fasting into pride.  You see Mammon is ALL about pride and its twin, shame.   I am just speaking about fasting here but it is true about any body care.  The war is not only about what you eat or wear but about how you eat or wear.  Do you love the temple of the Holy Spirit and honor it in that love?  People take better care of their cars than their temples!!  They fill them with poisons, toxic chemicals!  When they fast, it is still just religion!  

These are the earth treasures that Yeshua is talking about.  It isn't the cars or the  houses  He is talking about!!  It is the pride and shame!  You see when we work for pride, when we fast to be cool, we earn earth treasure, the approval of others who have the same treasures. IT becomes an economy of earth treasures.

But if we go the opposite way and ignore our bodies then that is Mammon and pride too.  A good analogy is how we would define loving someone, like a spouse.  If I love them with acts, so I can get noticed, then I am in pride.  But if I ignore them, and love them by one time declaration then I am in neglect which is self focus and more pride.  You see the key is the treasure, the value.  Do we value them, or in this case our bodies, as the way God values us or do we value our bodies in earthly ways, pride or shame?

But, when we act out of love, it becomes a heavenly treasure and God who isnLove rewards us because we are trading in His economy! Return to Matthew 6:22-24

"The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. 

(Matthew 6:22-24 NKJ)

You see the eye is the idea of perspective.  A good eye is one that sees with the eyes of God.  How do you see your body?  Do you see it with the yes of love?  Love is His currency and it is given NOT earned.  You can't earn love you can only give it.  So to sum this up, we have a body, which is holy to God.  Holy means dedicated and it is to be cared for in love.  How?  Great question.  Ask, seek, and find......

But first repent from works and turn to the joy of loving temple care!