“For I am the LORD who brings you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.”

Leviticus 11:45 (NKJV)

One can get lost in Leviticus. I’ve mentioned that many people who endeavor to read through the Bible get off the train at Leviticus. It’s easy to get bogged down in all the rules about unclean animals, sores and discharges (eew). But we live in a fallen world where there are many dirty, ugly and evil things. The Bible has a word for such things: abominable. Now we are not talking about a mythical snowman that lives in the arctic. We’re talking about something that causes a strong emotional reaction of disgust or disdain. Some things should be disgusting because they are impure, defiling and gross. If I invited you to come over for a piece of hot apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and then I served it to you with live worms, centipedes and spiders on top, you ought to gag. (And you may never return to my house!)

God identified disgusting things to teach His people the difference between good and evil, clean and unclean, holy and unholy. Because God is holy, He didn’t want His people to be unholy, unclean or disgusting. Because He delivered them from slavery in Egypt, He didn’t want them to become slaves to depravity.

This lesson carries to us today. God wants us to partake in His holiness. He doesn’t want us to be corrupted by this wicked world or the lusts of the flesh. Because God is holy, as His children we must pursue holiness.

“Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.”

Hebrews 12:14 (NKJV)

What are the unclean things that we must watch out for? We must stand guard over our eye gate, our ear gate, and our mouth gate. The first two determine what comes into our mind and heart; the last one determines what comes out of our heart and through our mouth. And we all know how defiling that can be!

May God help us to be like Daniel and his three friends and purpose in our hearts not to defile ourselves with anything unclean (Daniel 1:8).

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