Sunday, February 12, 2012

Set Apart, One to Another


One of my all-time favorite Christian choruses has to be "Refiner's Fire" by Brian Doerksen. I absolutely love the lyrics and I must say that this line always tears me up:

My heart's one desire
Is to be holy
Set apart for You, Lord
I choose to be holy
Set apart for You, my Master

Before that song came out in 1990, I hadn't really thought about what the word "holy" meant. To be honest with you, I kinda thought it meant being religious. I'm embarrassed to admit that now, but that was about the sum of my knowledge. I was a church goer, a Bible reader, I had Christian friends, and I taught Sunday school. That was my definition of "holy."

I later came to realize that being holy meant that we are dedicated to the Lord and set apart from all things impure:
But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do;  for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.” ~ 1 Peter 1:15&16.
The word "holy" in the greek translation is hagios coming from the word hagnos, which is defined in Strong's Concordance (G53) as:
  1. exciting reverence, venerable, sacred
  2. pure
    a) pure from carnality, chaste, modest
    b) pure from every fault, immaculate
    c) clean
In the same way, it's a beautiful thing when a husband and wife live in holy matrimony. When a man and a woman are dedicated to each other and set apart from anything that could destroy or damage their union.

This requires sacrifice on our part. Sacrifice might be anything from giving up something that distracts us from your relationship to career choices that we make. I hope and pray that we are living this way to please God, but let us also give attention to pleasing our husbands.

Saying "I do," and being united in holy matrimony is more than a ceremony. It's a life-long commitment of giving. And in the same way that being holy was more than attending church and reading my Bible, marriage is more than just living in the same house and putting up with each other. It's a continual giving of ourselves in dedication one to another.

A prime example of this is Kirk Cameron who refused to compromise both his faith and his marriage for the sake of career. His wife Chelsea stepped in for the scene at the end of "Fireproof" when Caleb kisses Catherine, and in my opinion it made the movie so much better for me as a viewer. After all, isn't that what the movie was about?

Catherine was distracted with a relationship at work, Caleb was distracted by women on the internet and neither of them were dedicated to making their relationship work. That is until Caleb took action that changed the course of their marriage.

Yeah, you've probably seen this scene before, but it's definitely worth a repeat!






You are loved by an almighty God,

Darlene

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