A Beautiful Invitation to a Life Set Apart

lifestyle

A few years ago, I decided to read my way through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation– chronologically. Throughout the first five books alone, I was blown away by all that the Holy Spirit was showing me—from finding the entire Gospel message tucked away in Genesis to discovering just what all those plagues cast down on Egypt were really all about.

While there are many themes and recurrences throughout, the one that seemed to be jumping off the pages to me was how frequently God reminded His people that they were special and belonged to Him, and as such they should live differently—set apart from anything and anyone they would come into contact with, including in the very land God promised them. And as we know, anything God repeats is important, so it should stop us in our tracks and cause us to dig deeper and listen harder.

It got me thinking, what does it truly look like to live set apart? And I don’t mean my idea of being set apart, but God’s idea of being set apart.

Let’s take a look at the wording in the Bible that’s used for “set apart”. The words holy, consecrate, and sanctify all mean “set apart” and are the English translations of these words:

Hebrew in the Old Testament

qadosh (Strong’s H6918) meaning sacred, holy, saints
qadash (Strong’s H6942) meaning to be set apart or consecrated

Greek in the New Testament

hagiazó (Strong’s G37) meaning make holy, treat as holy, set apart as holy, sanctify, hallow, purify
hagios (Strong’s G40) meaning set apart by (or for) God, holy, sacred

To be holy is to be sacred, sanctified, consecrated, and set apart. To be set apart is to be holy.

Set Apart in the Old Testament

As we visit the Old Testament we find several verses where God commands His people, Israel, to be holy and set apart. (Parentheses have been added.)

For I am the Lord your God. You shall therefore consecrate (set apart) yourselves, and you shall be holy (set apart); for I am holy (set apart). For I am the Lord who brings you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God. You shall therefore be holy (set apart), for I am holy (set apart).

Leviticus 11:44a,45

Consecrate (set apart) yourselves therefore, and be holy (set apart), for I am the LORD your God. And you shall keep My statutes, and perform them: I am the LORD who sanctifies (sets apart) you.

Leviticus 20:7-8

And you shall be holy (set apart) to Me, for I the LORD am holy (set apart); and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be Mine.

Leviticus 20:26

For you are a holy (set apart) people to the LORD your God, the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth.

Deuteronomy 7:6

And that He will set you high above all nations which He has made, in praise, in name, and in honor, and that you may be a holy (set apart) people to the LORD your God, just as He has spoken.

Deuteronomy 26:19

Aren’t those verses just amazing? What a beautiful love God was expressing to His people.

But…

Almost on repeat in the first five books of the Bible is the pattern of God’s miraculous deliverance, followed by the worship of Him by His people, quickly followed by them being angry with Him for something He didn’t do in the exact manner and timing they wanted Him to do it. I mean, it’s laughable really, enough to make you wonder what was wrong with those people! Until you realize that we (you and me) are those people. No, we may not bow down in the city streets to worship a glistening golden cow. I mean that would be ridiculous… until the Holy Spirit reveals to us the truth—anything we look to instead of God is a glistening golden cow! They are not separate things. Not standing with God is standing with the enemy. Not worshiping God is worshiping the enemy. The more you read His Word, the more you will discover there is no gray area and hence the immense need to not just know His Word but be rooted in it, anchored to Him and Him alone.

So those Old Testament verses that were directed to the people of Israel, are they relevant to believers today?

And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.

Galatians 3:29

As believers, we are included with Israel as descendants of Abraham and heirs to the promise. The promise of the Messiah, Jesus, to whom we belong. All these verses from the Old Testament apply to us as well. If the Old Testament can teach us anything it’s that we all were born with the desire to worship something and someone, and who and what we will worship is the determining factor of the kind of life we will live and what will fill our days. And as much as the Old Testament Israelites could not obey, could not do things God's way, could not keep the law, could not keep their eyes on Him, we too are the same. But there is one major difference for us. And that's Jesus and His beautiful and merciful gift to us of His Holy Spirit.

Set Apart in the New Testament

Check out these amazing verses from the New Testament that tell us we are holy and set apart because of Jesus.

Sanctify (set apart) them in the truth; Your word is truth. And for their sakes I sanctify (set apart) Myself, so that they themselves also may be sanctified (set apart) in truth.

John 17:17,19

…that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified (set apart) by faith in Me.

Acts 26:18b

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify (set apart) you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Thessalonians 5:23

By this will, we have been sanctified (set apart) through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified (set apart).

Hebrews 10:10,14

…he who is righteous, let him be righteous still; he who is holy (set apart), let him be holy (set apart) still.

Revelation 22:11b

We are made holy and set apart by Jesus. But we still live in a sinful world. While our forgiveness of sin and salvation is a free gift, which nothing we do or don’t do can change, Paul reminds us in the New Testament that this is not a license to live a life of sin. It is not a pass to live like those in the world around us.

What then? Are we to sin because we are not under the Law but under grace? Far from it!

Romans 6:15

To live set apart is a beautiful invitation to live as who we truly are, and I don’t mean who we feel like we are, I mean who we are despite how we feel. Because of Jesus, we are set apart. Chosen. Handpicked. Treasured and loved by God. The very righteousness of God. And we are to live completely dependent on Him and the life He died to give us and we are to avoid the evil around us, to avoid the world that can look so appealing, to avoid turning to anything other than God to worship.

4 Ways to Start Living Set Apart

Apart from total dependence on Christ we will fail and fail again to live the lives we are called to—it’s impossible, it just can’t be done. Nothing we do in our strength can ever bring glory to God (not to mention, all that trying will wear us out!).

So here are a few ways to accept Jesus’ beautiful invitation to a life set apart:

1. Thank God.

Appreciate and receive into your spirit every day, the reality that you are set apart. Ask God to lead you into a life that is pleasing to Him and allow Him to show you what that will look like in your life personally.

2. Constantly pray.

Prayer is where we fight the enemy, where we praise and give thanks to God, where we bring our requests to Him, and where we share our hearts with Him freely—every detail matters—He loves talking with us. Prayer is where the impossible becomes possible and where our spirits become more and more bound to His.

3. Constantly stay rooted in truth.

Anchor yourself to His Word, and meet Him there daily. Scripture is our spiritual food and a necessity for every aspect of making it in this world. Reading your Bible daily is not merely a “good habit”, Hebrews 4:12 tells us that “it is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

4. Worship Jesus, and Jesus alone.

This is the scary one… Without the divine revelation of the Holy Spirit, we will never see what we worship in place of God, what is distracting us from Him, or what seemingly harmless things may, in fact, be things that God wants to remove from our lives for His reasons. Fearlessly ask God to reveal to you anything that is in competition with Him, remembering His heart of love for you and that He has only good things for you.

“Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.” Philippians 3:8