He Longs for Us

"I am the LORD your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. Do not make yourselves unclean by any creature that moves about on the ground. I am the LORD who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy." Lev. 11: 44-45 (NIV)

Most people see this as command for perfection, or as a call to be set apart. To be holy because God is holy seems like a very daunting task. How could humans ever be holy like God is holy? It is in fact impossible. But I would like to propose a different perspective about this command. The obvious interpretation is that God wants us try to be like him; to be holy, but why? Why would God ask such an impossible task of humans? I think that answer is simple, because he LOVES US. Yes, because he loves us he tells us to be holy. Make sense? Think about it like this, God has always longed for a face to face, extremely personal, relationship with us but he knows that because of our imperfection that could never happen so he tells us to be holy so we can be close to him. Now just think about that for a second, this isn't a condemning task but an invitation to come close!

Now this is taken out of the Old Testament, way before the freedom Jesus gave us to enter into a relationship with God that was originally intended. But this verse is still so impactful. We find it placed in the midst of all these rules and laws that God has put in place and he calls out to his people saying this is all so that we can have fellowship. The Israelites would have the understanding that when God called himself Holy he meant that he was beyond everything we are and understand, that by ourselves we could never stand before him without death unless we were Holy like him. So when God uttered the words "be holy as I am Holy" they knew what he meant, they knew it wasn’t a heavy burden to bear, they knew it came from the unending love of God and his extreme longing for us. I pray that today you will encounter this longing God has for you, and the greatest thing of all is that now, through Christ we have an easy way to get into this relationship, but in knowing that do not forgot that God even when the earth began wanted a relationship with you, that’s why Jesus came.