Love Righteousness; Practice Holiness

December 2

“Bring no more futile sacrifices; Incense is an abomination to Me. The New Moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies—I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting. Your New Moons and your appointed feasts My soul hates; they are a trouble to Me, I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide My eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood,” Isaiah 1:13-15.

This passage in the Old Testament is reflected in the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:22, 23, “Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them, ' never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.”

Isaiah 1:15 says, “.... Your hands are full of blood.” Matthew 7:22 says, “…You practice lawlessness.” We are all sinners saved by God’s grace but these verses make it evident that there is a line we cross of our own volition that we can only conclude will relegate us to a state that is beyond God’s forgiveness.

When we continually indulge our proclivity to sin, when sin becomes a way of life for us, our hearts become deafened to the sweet wooing of the Holy Spirit. We delight in our sin rather than in the salvation Jesus has purchased for us at so great a price to Himself.

That is not to say the hardened sinner has no chance of repentance and salvation; that is merely to recognize that the practice of sin becomes so ingrained within a person that to indulge the most wanton of acts is done without thought to eternal consequences. The saying, ‘Old habits die hard,’ is certainly on point where our proclivity to sin is concerned.

The serial adulterer is not touched by the magnitude of his wantonness. The embezzler regards his ill-acquired gain as the fruit of his well-thought-out scheme. The parent who neglects the child who needs his love and care justifies himself by indulging his child’s every whim rather than assuming his rightful parental responsibilities. The once-saved backslider blames the hypocrisy he finds in the church for his absence from the house of worship rather than his own penchant for the golf course or the football stadium.

No matter what sin we indulge; no matter what commandment we break habitually, we are warned that the repetitiveness of our practice of sin will harden us to the point that we will become established in it. May the Holy Spirit course through our minds and hearts with the candle of His truth. May He enlighten the dark recesses where our sin has taken residence within us and help us to cast it out.

May He help us to love righteousness and to practice holiness so we will never have to hear the words, “Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.”