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Holiness is not something God requires only from Christians. He asked it of the Jewish people first, and as we previously discussed, He put laws in place to enable His people to stand out and be separate from the pagan world around them. The laws themselves would not make them holy, but they would help people see what God saw as sin in order to keep themselves from it. After a time, the rulers of the law (those priests who enforced it) added their own rules and interpretations of holiness...

We have talked about spiritual sacrifices and what that means when practicing holiness. But how can we practice holiness if we have not yet fully grasped what that entails?

Over 40 years ago, holiness (or what I perceived as holiness) was something I experienced on a regular basis when I stepped into my church every Sunday morning. At that time, I attended an Anglican church. Back then, you could hear a pin drop on a Sunday morning as the sanctuary filled with worshippers. When I came into...

When God chose Israel to be His people, He called them to be a “holy nation.�� They were to be sanctified and set apart from all the other nations around them. Exodus 19:3-8 gives a clear picture of what God expected of His people and what the people agreed to.

And Moses went up to God, and the  Lord  called to him from the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel:  ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles�� win...

Holiness is a biblical concept mentioned in the Bible over six hundred times. It is one of the central themes of Leviticus and other books of the Bible. 1 Peter 1:16 says, "Be holy because I am holy." But what does that look like for Christians today? How do we live lives that are holy? Is that even possible? To grasp the concept of holiness, we need to go back to the very beginning of Genesis. Then God said, "Let there be light,"  and there was light.  And God saw the  light  that it w...

I have claimed the title “Christian�� for over 40 years and yet not a day goes by when I don’t learn something new from the Bible or feel God correcting me where I am wrong about something. When I had my first child, I was still what many would consider very “young�� in my faith. A baby myself, but trying to do the right things to honour God. I came to Christ when I was 18. Six years later I was married to a Christian man, who was and still is an excellent provider, husband and father. Unfo...

You've probably been living under a rock if you haven't noticed how the world has been treating Christians lately. In less than 30 years, we (and by that, I mean the entire church body—those who follow Jesus as Saviour from all denominations) have gone The changes were subtle, and they started in the education system w...

Did Jesus say you have to ask Him into your heart to be saved? Do I have to say the “sinner’s prayer��? Do I have to ask Jesus to take control of my life and accept Him as my Saviour? What does that even mean? What does it mean to “commit�� myself to the Lord? What are the steps involved to “being saved��? The church says you must first believe that Jesus is Lord. Then you must confess your sins and repent of them. Finally, you must ask Jesus into your heart or life to receive His Holy Spiri...

In John 3:1-21, Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council (the Sanhedrin) came to Jesus at night. He didn’t approach him during the day when crowds of people surrounded him. He went at night, when people were sleeping and when it would be unlikely that anyone else on the council would know what he was doing.

This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him�� (John 3:...

Have you ever wondered why the people in Jesus�� hometown of Nazareth got so angry with him over a few little words? He had just finished reading the following to them:
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"The spirit of the L-rd GOD is upon me; because HaShem hath anointed me to bring good tidings unto the humble; He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the eyes to them that are bound; To proclaim the year of HaShem’s good pleasure" (Isaiah 61:1, 2, JPS).

Now here ...

Photo Credit: Susan Helmuth, Creation Swap I want to take you on a journey today of how events might have transpired after Jesus�� time in the wilderness. One of the things I like to do when reading the Gospels is to open them all up on in different tabs. That way, I can get a complete picture of events as they transpired. After Jesus had defeated Satan in the wilderness, for example, we get a full picture of what He did next. From the Gospel of Luke, we learn that Jes...