Set Apart

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy."
(I Peter 1:14-16)

Those who claim to be mature in Christ must bear the fruit of holiness. Being in Christ means being set apart from the world and its way. It means being set apart from the selfishness found in us as we conformed to the world. We are set apart by God's doing, not by our effort. To be set apart is to be holy. We are to be holy because God is holy. He took the initiative to call us out of the domain of darkness in order to transfer us into the kingdom of His Son. If we live apart from God, we seek to satisfy our fleshly desires. If we live life set apart to and for God, then we seek to glorify God by doing the will of God. Through faith in Christ as the one whom God sent, we are set apart, made holy. As we listen to the Lord Jesus Christ and do what he says, we face opportunity after opportunity to choose to surrender our will to the Lord. In submitting to His will, we are living the holy life. As we grow, submitting to God becomes more and more natural because we recognize God's goodness and faithfulness. We grow in our love and trust of God such that it appears that we are living in a constant state of holiness. Yet, we realize that holiness is not a condition that we achieve, but faithfully abiding in the word of God and in His faithfulness. We are set apart by God and for God. This is not our doing, but a gift from God who in His grace and mercy, gave His son so that we who had been in slavery to sin and death, could be reconciled to God and have eternal life in Christ, the kingdom prepared for us from the foundation of the world. Having been set apart by God, we live life set apart to God.

Growth towards Christian maturity

Conforming to the World

We are born into without an understanding of God and His holiness. We learn to live this life by what we see and hear around us and through our own selfish stirring which we seek to satisfy. In the process of living for ourselves, we come to believe that how we live is strictly our own decision. Because we think life is about us and up to us, we choose to do what pleases us. For the most part, that is what we see others doing, so that is what we learn to do. The more we listen to the world and practice its ways, the more we conform to the world. We have no resemblance of Jesus Christ because we don't know him, nor listen to him, nor even desire to look like him. Our desire is to get all we can out of the world. The desires stirred within us by way of the world is what we focus on. In some areas of our life we may feel like things are going well. What we may not see is how the problems we are encountering are based on the choices we are making or have made. We try our best to adjust in our life, though our changes still conform to the world. We are not seeking after God nor do we see any need to do so. The reality is that we are set apart by our choices from God. We are not set apart for God and to God. Thus, we are not holy people. In fact, the idea of holiness is repulsive to us. Sure, we might recognize that if we were to follow Christ, that there would be things in our life that we could not keep on doing, and frankly that just doesn't sound appealing to us. This is because we don't realize that the change that needs to take place must take place in our heart. In our distorted view we believe that holiness is about rules to be obeyed or some supreme effort we would need to make to stay away from the life style we now embrace. We are far from God and thus we are far from being holy.

My View of the World Challenged

Life Changing Gospel

Then somewhere along the way we encounter the gospel message. We meet Jesus Christ, hear his message, and find ourselves drawn to him. The more we listen to him and believe what he says, the more we find his words challenging our way of life. Finally, we come to the point where we accept the truth of his message and the implication has on our life. At least as far as we understand the impact of the truth on us at that point. Growth takes place as we continue learning from Christ as his disciple and submitting to the changes that he says needs to take place in our life. The transforming work of God is changing our priorities, our perspective, and even how we see ourselves. We are a new creation and the world and its ways look a little different. We are set apart for God. From the moment we believe Christ we are set apart, made holy. Yet there is a sense in which we continue to learn what it means to be holy and grow in holiness. Each time we are challenged by the Lord regarding something that needs to change in our life, that is an opportunity to grow in holiness. When we surrender the issue to God, we are submitting ourselves to being set apart from that issue. In our growth in Christ, we may encounter some things that take us a while to surrender. The world, our fleshly desires, and our enemy the devil doesn't want us to submit to God, which keeps us in a battle against the will of God concerning that issue. Part of the problem on our side is that we do not yet fully trust God and love Him to the extent that we willingly submit to Him in all areas of our life. We learn to surrender all areas of life by choosing to surrender each area at the point where it is demanding our allegiance to it rather than to God. This is because being holy is an act of the will in which we choose to do the will of God rather than our own will. Being holy is not a status we are awarded or a condition we grow into, but simply our believing God and doing what He says. Holiness is the evidence of our love for Christ and our faith in him. In spending time with him, remaining loyal to him, and speaking about him, we are simultaneously being trained in holiness and living a holy life. There is much room for our growth, but more and more we are choosing that which glorifies God and we are doing it much more naturally because we trust Him. We are living in Christ and he is living in us, thus we are set apart in him, for him, and by him. We are set apart to God.

Learning to Be in the World but Not of It

Set Apart for God

To say we arrive at a point of Christian maturity in which we are completely set apart for God is to suggest that somehow we no longer have choices to make. Our being set apart for God or pursuing our own desires is evident in every choice we make. Yet, there comes a point in our growth where the desires of the flesh, the things of the world, and the lies of the devil no longer have the lure to sway us away from God. The whole of our life is being lived out for the glory of God. Certainly we are making the choices in our life, but our motivation and our deepest desire is not driven or even centered on ourselves. We belong to Christ, period. Our life is not our own for we have been bought with a price, the blood of Christ. This truth and its impact on our life has totally transformed us from what we once were. No longer are we focused on our own interests, but on the interests of Christ and his church. Thus, our being set apart means that we are integrated into the people of God, which is the Church, the body of Christ. We recognize that the Church is not what we had expected in that it is not made up of perfect people, but is instead made up of people who are redeemed by God and growing as they learn to listen to Christ and do what he says. They too are set apart, though sometimes we have our doubts, especially when we feel hurt by them. Yet, our being set apart means that we love as Christ loves and serve as Christ served. We are holy and they too are holy. Just as we recognize that we belong to Christ, we also recognize that the Church belongs to Christ. He has taken us to be his own for better or worse. He has set the Church and us apart to be holy because he himself is holy. It is Christ's doing, not our own. It is the Lord's idea and plan for us to be holy, not ours. This is because it is his desire that we live for him and not for ourselves. We are set apart to God by God Himself and we joyfully respond in love and faith by living our life set apart from the world and its ways. We live a life set apart from any attempt to prove ourselves holy as if it were done by holding to a set of rules. We live a life set apart from the desire to escape from this world. We live a life in holiness that proclaims Christ and the good news of the kingdom of God to a world still in bondage to selfishness. We proclaim Christ knowing that those who believe will also be set apart for God.