I am the LORD who makes them holy.Leviticus 22

7:45 a.m. Today's project was to awaken early to get ready for the Calvary Chapel Moreno Valley Ladies' Retreat in Twin Peaks. The Lord is so good that He woke me up suddenly about 11 minutes earlier than I thought I needed to get up! He knew the odds 'n ends that I would be dealing with this morning, and a few unusual tasks have already come to add busyness to my morning!

After starting a load of laundry for Steve and myself, I discovered that I can once again fit into a pair of jeans I had given up hope on, so I tucked those on under my house-robe. I'll wear those this afternoon to go up to the mountains, where I figure the temperature will be quite a bit cooler than down here. During my devotions, in my Mary Kay journal to the Lord, I wrote that I might remember to encourage and uplift other women, in any circumstances, not only business; and also, that He would grant me sales this morning at the hairdresser's! In my daily scripture portion, I then pondered the holiness of God and the commands for His holy priests and their families in Leviticus 22, I was struck by this phrase used by God six times to Moses:

I AM THE LORD.

And God says three times of the priests,

I AM THE LORD WHO MAKES THEM HOLY.

In Leviticus, the commands to the priests are to be followed perfectly for a perfectly holy God. In Revelation 1:6, John speaks of us, the church, and what Jesus Christ has done for us:

To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen

In Christ we have a new identity, not of our own doing or from a physical lineage like Aaron and his sons of the levitical priesthood, but a new identity from the inside out, because of Christ's death on the cross!

I Peter 1:4-5 speaks of those who have put their trust in Christ:

Coming to Him as a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

And those spiritual sacrifices are? Romans 12:1:

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.

We no longer are required to bring an animal to sacrifice, or to build up our own lives to be holy, because Jesus is the perfect sacrifice, for all time and eternity! He is the Master Builder, making each man and woman who trust in Christ into the person He intends for each of us to become!

We do have our part to play in response to His work and in the power of the Holy Spirit, Ephesians 2:8-10 tells us:

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

As I prepare now for ministry to women this evening, praying with the brokenhearted and discouraged, may I come with clean hands and a pure heart, washed in the blood of the Lamb!