"For I am the Lord your God. You shall therefore consecrate yourselves, and you shall be holy; for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44).
We see this calling from the Old Testament right through to Revelations. Our relationship with the King is not a one night stand – “one night with the King” – it is and eternity with the Bridegroom.
For the first time in my life I am starting to understand what God meant when He said: “Be holy for I am holy.” It is God’s desire to create a most holy place in all of us. Our hearts must be a most holy place where the King of Kings, Yeshua the Messiah, can dwell. You might even be a minister, or sing in the church choir – but that doesn’t mean that there is a most holy place in your spirit. The most holy place does not consist of knowledge, or religious works – it consists of your love relationship with God.
After being tested by many fiery trials, after enduring suffering and resisting the enemy in my foundation – my DNA – I believe that God took me through a typical Job trial. I walked with God through the fire of the purification process, and He redeemed my DNA. All of the idols that where sitting in my foundation called out against the calling of God on my life, in order to keep me from walking in my destiny. This is what happens to all of us, but we just call it different things because we don’t want to face the truth. People would rather fight the fruits, than to pull out the roots.
The enemy wants to keep all of us out of our destiny in Christ, and when our foundation is defiled we will always see that the walls of our soul dimension are broken. Before we can start rebuilding the walls of our soul, we have to deal with the cracks in our foundation. This only comes by repentance when we break down the altars of Satan, and the generational sins that we inherited through our spiritual DNA. Where marriage foundations were cracked in the generations before you, you will find that the enemy screams out for your marriages. Where financial foundations are broken in our DNA, you will find that the enemy attacks your finances.
You will not experience the Promised Land without a fight – but God is the one who teaches our hands to war. The Israelites had to fight for it, and so do we. If you don’t have your sword in your hand (the Word of God), and if you aren’t clothed in the armour of God, you will not survive the fight. In the battles that my family and I had to fight we held on to the Word of God like never before. The fire raged and it burned away at the bondages that kept us from rebuilding the walls of our city. But together with trials and pain something else happened – I received a revelation of the presence of God that I never knew before. A most holy place was created in the very core of my being. It was a place of intimate worship in the midst of pain and suffering.
There is a difference between righteousness and holiness. Righteousness is required by God of all His children to demonstrate kindness, faithfulness and love towards all men. But then I came to understand that there is something else that God gives to His sons in the holy of holies – it is a closer, more intimate, walk with God. It is a walk where you don’t compare yourself to others anymore, and when you just know that things will never be the same again. Your thoughts, your words, your actions, your everything, will be put through the fire and you will begin to recognize God’s presence in every moment of your life. For He is the air you breathe.
We are washed by the Word. The path you walk becomes narrower with each step you take forward, and it is the Holy Spirit that leads you forward step by step. We then discover that when we practice uncleanness we are to confess our sin and denounce it. As we do this the power of the blood cleanses us from that is unclean in God’s sight. The Word of God says that without holiness we will never see God. Only the pure of heart will see God, but unfortunately our society has become so accustomed to the works of the enemy that we can’t distinguish between good and evil anymore – there are a lot of grey areas even in the church.
I know now that there were many areas in my life that I compromised on. Things that I thought God would overlook because He knew I struggled with it – but now I know that it was the cracks in my foundation that kept tipping my up all the time. Even if God knows your heart, and He knows that you don’t want to fall into the same sins time and time again, it won’t stop by itself. Those deliberate sins keep us out of the road of Holiness. We must abhor profanity, adultery, pornography, fornication, hatred, jealousy, gossip, slander, unforgiveness, envy... the list just goes on and on. You can’t say that you are walking on a road of holiness when you watch x-rated moves, fill your mind with filth, speaking the language of demons, and hate your brother. These actions are not holy and God will not accept them in order to be in oneness with Him. You will have a constant fight within yourself.
Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”
Therefore “Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” (2 Cor. 6:14-17).
Even with all these things going on, people still fight the truth and say that they don’t have to do anything anymore. Yes, you are in righteousness because of your faith in Christ – but are you in holiness?
Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them. But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all (Col. 3:5-11).
You will need to face your cracked and rotting foundation in order to deal with it. That is why Jesus Christ died on the cross – in order to set us free from this bondage. He came so that we can have life and life in abundance! A life with Him in the holy of holies.
For long enough people have hidden behind the excuse of saying that “God knows my heart.” Yes, He knows your heart – and that is why He allows your foundation to stand up against you. I can’t lay hands on you to change your situation – the foundation has to be repaired. The choice is placed before us: life or death – choose life. Blessing or curse – choose blessing.
“Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 7:1).
Whoever teaches that we can behave in an unholy manner and still have pure fellowship with God in the Holy of Holies on the basis of mercy and grace has not been through the fire at all! That is not what I experienced while going through our fire – I saw that only a pure, broken and contrite spirit can be one with God in the Holy of Holiness.
“I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.
For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:19-23).
If we treat our bodies as a holy vessel, the eternal temple of Holy Spirit – our bodies and our lives will be an expression of Gods character. But if we defile our body with unclean speech and practices, that is what will be seen and manifested in our lives. That what you sow, you will reap. The Spirit of the Lord is the Spirit of the Holy God. As we cooperate with Him in our thoughts, words, speech and actions, He will lead us into Holiness as we rebuild our foundations of sin and iniquity. I flee from anyone who teaches that I can practice sin and still reap a life of abundance and a love relationship in the Holy of Holies with The King of Glory.
Before I went through the fiery trial I had never experience before what I experience now after rebuilding our foundations – it is something special that is reserved only for the Holy of Holies, and it is there for all of us because Yeshua has paid the price in full. We just need to apply it.
After the basic requirements have been met, our calling in the kingdom will determine the intensity of our passion for holiness. I pray daily that God will give me and my family an ever growing passion for Him, His Word, and His holiness.
“But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph. 4:20-24).
To be holy, is to be drawn closer to God. I am not talking about salvation now – but about your love relationship with God. How I thank God for allowing us to go through that fire.
I am now at a place where I don’t want to judge anymore, because I know it keeps me away from the most beautiful gift I have ever received – the gift of sensitivity to the Spirit of God. It is to be sensitive to His presence, His voice, His will, His touch, His power, His thoughts, His mercy, His truth, His grace, His love! Oh how I just LOVE Him!!
His bride will be radiant and glorious – and He is extending His sceptre to you today... please accept it.
Love to you from Africa.
Retah and family