The Secret Place: 21 Day DevotionalSample

NOT SEEING THE LORD?!

Hebrews 12:14

As we have learned, the literal definition of the word sanctification (from the Greek) means holiness. Therefore it is not possible to move through the journey of sanctification, without doing what is needed to become more holy. As our anchor scripture today says, without holiness, no one will see the Lord. This verse also tells us one thing we can do to live a life that is holy, by making every effort to live in peace with everyone. Now this is no easy feat, but that’s why the author of Hebrews tells us to make every effort. Sanctification is based on the ongoing works on us of the indwelling Spirit within us. We need to be motivated by the fact that without holiness, no one will see the Lord because it means that with holiness, one WILL see the Lord. That means we need to be open and receptive to, and allow for, the work of the Holy Spirit in us, because we by ourselves do not know what we should do to become more Holy because as Jeremiah tells us, the heart is deceitful above all things. This is actually why fasting is so important because during our fast we learn to starve the flesh so that we may feed the Spirit. Because the desires of the flesh and the desires of the Spirit can never be aligned.

Can you imagine going through life and never seeing the Lord? Maybe, up till now in our Christian life, we have not seen or heard from the Lord. Maybe this could be one of the reasons why. Because we need to take that next step in our walk of sanctification. We have given our life to Christ and therefore already have justification, but how far along our walk of sanctification are we? We were not saved by Jesus to remain the way we are, we were saved so that we would be given the opportunity to “Be Holy for I (God) am Holy” (Leviticus 11:44). For God, emulating a life that reflects His holiness is so important that Jesus taught on this in His Sermon on the Mount when He said “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8). The pure in heart are those who are holy and are always moving forward on their road of sanctification and it is these people that (Jesus says) will see God. In Exodus 33, God told Moses that no one can see God and live. Why? Because of sin, we know that the result of sin is death and destruction, and God being a Holy God cannot have sin in His presence. Sanctification leads to holiness, and holiness rids us of the disease of sin. As we are being sanctified and being made holy we now get to see God and stand in His presence. We should reflect on whether the barrier that we feel when trying to access the secret place is because of our resistance to the process of sanctification. The journey of sanctification and becoming more holy, has been beautifully summarised in Ephesians 4: 22-24 where it says: You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness”.

So let us put off our old self and put on our new self on a daily basis. This is how we become more holy and ultimately experience more of God.