Set Apart - Jan. 13-17

You must keep My instruction to not do any of the detestable customs that were practiced before you, so that you do not defile yourselves by them; I am the Lord your God. - Leviticus 18:30

This week as we continued reading through Leviticus together I’ve been struck by just how many instructions there were for the Israelites to follow. This of course can make a book like Leviticus difficult to read, but it also has applications for our lives as Christians today. Now I’m not saying that all of these laws have direct applications for us, however they do show us a picture that is very helpful. This picture I think is described well by the Apostle Peter.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the One who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. - 1 Peter 2:9

So in Leviticus, we are seeing God make his nation a people set apart, unique, distinctly the people of God. For us today it may be easy to miss this detail, but even just the cleanliness of Israel would have made them radically different from the surrounding nations. As Christians today we may not be under the mosaic law, but we are still called to be distinctly God’s people as Peter confirms in the above verse.

But what does that look like? Well, Paul in his letters describes in great detail what the life of a christian should look like, but for today let’s just look at what Jesus says in the gospel of John.

“I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” - John 13:34-36

Brothers and sisters, this is a great place for us to start looking like a distinct people, to love each other like Christ loved us. This doesn’t just look like “niceness”, but laying our lives down for one another; be it giving up your night off for that friend that’s struggling, or saying the difficult truth when nooone wants to hear it. Let us truly love one another, and by this the world will know that we are followers of Christ.