Set Apart

Who is setting the bar/standards for my life.  God or me?

Here are some Biblical principles to meditate on that can put us on track to living a life set apart to God: (Please Read the verses to support the principle)

·        Being Holy: Be Holy  "Be holy, because I am holy”.(1 Peter 1:16 ).  

                 *Read Colossians Chapter 3 for the Rules for Holy Living  and the Rules for 
                 Christian Households

·        Loving others: Love one another. Love Your Neighbor as Yourself (Romans 13:9)

·        Doing good to all people (Galatians 6:10)

·        Going out and making disciples (Matthew 28:19)

·        Knowing Jesus and becoming Like Him (Philippians 3:10-11)

·        Repenting & turning away from sin (2 Timothy 2:19)

·        Honoring God.  Let him who boasts boast in the Lord (1 Corinthians 1:31)

·        Honoring one another above ourselves (Romans 12:10)

·        Not repaying evil for evil. Do What is right in the eyes of everybody.

    ( Romans 12:17)

·        The importance of having integrity (1 Chronicles 29:17)

·        Everything is permissible but not everything in beneficial. (1 Corinthians 10:23)

·        Whatever you do, do it all  for the Glory of God. (1Corinthians 10:31)

·        Standing firm in the faith……Do everything in love. (1Corinthians 16:13 )

·        Not being yoked together with unbelievers (2 Corinthians 6:14)

·        No longer living as the “Gentiles” do, in the futility of their thinking. (Ephesians 4:17)

·        Devoting ourselves to prayer ( Colossians 4:2)

·        Living to please God ( 1 Thessalonians 4: 1-12 )

·        Avoiding Gossip (2 Timothy 2:16)

·        The importance of Faith: “and without faith it is impossible to please God.”  

      ( Hebrews 11:6 )

·       Setting ourselves apart to Jesus: “In Your hearts Set apart Christ as Lord”  

     (1 Peter 3:15 )

·        Obeying God’s commands ( 1 John 5:3 )

·        Loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength ( Mark 12:30 )

There was a time where I would have said this: 

 “OK that’s enough! I give up! I can’t do this! I am not capable of living up to God’s standards!"

You see there was a time I believed that my standards were preferable to God's. My standards were much easier to live by and didn't require much effort.  There was a time I just wanted to enjoy life and not work to hard at anything. I just wanted to Rock!

Fortunately I made a choice to pursue a deep and personal  relationship with God. I realized as much as I desired to pursue Him, He was trying even harder to pursue me.  When I chose to allow God to minister to my heart I found that this was one

relationship that began to make a real difference in my life.  I now had some direction, some purpose to my daily living. No longer did I daily agonize over my failure to accomplish my personal self- centered agenda. God has given me a gift of real life that centered around his plan and purpose. This new life begins now and extends from the present into eternity. Because of Jesus I have a desire to reevaluate the way I look at the world. I now have a biblical worldview that is 180 degrees different in perspective from the way I used to view life.  I also desire to avoid wasting time on things that have no eternal purpose.  Because I am a work in progress I still find myself falling back into some old patterns every once in a while. The good news is I recognize when it happens and the Holy Spirit is quick to point out that I still have a sin nature.

When I look at the set of standards God desires for me to embrace, I know I need Jesus’ help. In order for me to live a life set apart to God, I have to have the desire to live and walk in His ways.  Jesus sent us the Holy Spirit to indwell in us and give us the strength and desire to live as one of His disciples because on my own, due to the old self that can rear its ugly head, I find it difficult to live in obedience to God. With the Holy Spirit as my counselor, teacher and guide, what is unattainable due to self centered desire is now attainable due to the power of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit helps me put on the new self which is created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness, which is also being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Yet as much as I desire now to live a perfect life, I know only Jesus was able to accomplish that. Jesus fulfilled God’s perfect plan of Salvation through His perfect life and sacrifice. Still, my desire is to please God.

Even though I will never achieve perfection in this life, I must still keep in mind the importance of knowing  that I am always in God’s presence. That means whatever I do, God is fully aware of what is going on in my heart.  And It is my heart that God

is really concerned about.  This means I need to raise the integrity bar in all the areas of my life.  In order to do so I have to know what is important to God. When I study God’s Word I have a road map of great wisdom and instruction I can follow. The list  I made of what God commands and desires for how we should live is just a small portion of what we can find in the Bible.  Genesis to Revelation is filled With God’s incredible teaching and demonstration of love for us.  Some of The most important things to remember are, why God would go to such great lengths to get our attention,  Why Jesus would die for our sins,  Why God created the Universe, the Earth & Man in the first place.  It really comes down to God  wanting to have a personal relationship with each one of us. Originally God had a perfect relationship with man but when sin entered  the world through disobedience, that relationship was broken. The Good News is that God had a plan to restore us back to Himself.

God desires to fill the our lives with His love. He  desires a daily connection with our hearts. He cares about the choices we make and yet freely allows us to make them.  What choice are we going to make today? I would say, Let’s care about what God cares about.  

Let’s look over the list above and see what we can do to raise the bar in all those areas. Let's live for God’s eternal purpose.   

If we truly want to honor God with our lives then let’s start by asking for His help to live according to His ways. I know personally this is one prayer He desires to answer.

……………Just Sayin………………..Dave