Focal Passage: Leviticus 26:1-13
When I was young the Coca-Cola company created a contest that challenged customers to find four bottle caps with each having a word that created the phrase, “Coke the real thing.” As you might imagine, my older sister and I examined every Coke cap we could find but could only spell, “Coke the thing.” The “real” was nowhere to be found.
I don’t remember how much prize money was at stake, but if we had won we would have spent it quickly. I have often reflected on that childhood treasure hunt and now realize the lesson was worth more than the prize.
Countless vendors offer lots of things as the solution to life’s longings, but how much of it is real? Church, let’s look in the mirror. When someone new steps into your worship or ministry activities, do they see a product or experience being peddled or do they see authentically transformed lives submitted to the lordship of Christ?
Leviticus 26 opens with two mandates from the Ten Commandments (avoiding idolatry, sabbath keeping) followed by another explanation of the conditional nature of the Mosaic Covenant. Rain, abundant crops, security, military dominance, and offspring were promised to Israel if they walked in holiness before the Lord.
Troy Rust
Sadly, Israel repeatedly lost its distinctive flavor among the nations by compromising its spiritual standards. Instead of pointing the nations to the true and living God, the chosen nation chose to reject God’s righteous restraints in exchange for the idolatry and lewd living of its neighbors. Like the R.E.M. song said, “That’s me in the spotlight, losing my religion, trying to keep up with you and I don’t know if I can do it.”
Religion comes and goes like the waves of the ocean, but conviction will endure every storm. Many people in Israel disobeyed God because the only thing that distinguished them from the nations around them was another religion, not real, exclusive worship of the true and living God.
God’s residence among them (26:11) via the tabernacle should have been more than enough reason to walk in fear and trembling before the Lord. Furthermore, God reminded them that He Had broken their yoke and enabled them to live in freedom (26:13). The rebellious spirits of the Israelites preferred to exchange an old yoke of bondage for a new one. Faithless religion is good at that.
Peter exhorted the scattered saints of the early church to pursue holiness: “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires of your former ignorance. But as the one who called you is holy, you also are to be holy in all your conduct; for it is written, ‘Be holy, because I am holy’” (I Peter 1:14-16).
While there are numerous other traits Christians are called to pursue, (humility, submissiveness, wisdom, joy, patience, gentleness, etc.) none of them clarify new life in Christ like holiness. Legalism, which is often confused with holiness, is marked by a rigid self-righteousness that exalts personal performance above the grace of God.
Holiness, on the other hand, is the selfless resignation to being set apart from the things of the world and unto God. We will have a hard time convincing people that we are pursuing holiness if we are regularly exchanging the currency of worldliness. B&R
