Then Haggai said, "If a person defiled by contact with a dead body touches one of these things, does it become defiled?" "Yes," the priests replied, "it becomes defiled."
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As I'm preparing to preach through Haggai this week, I had a very sharp encounter with God. He revealed clearly to me that in my frustration with the battle of the flesh, I was trying to win through 'outside' sources. Myself. Experiences. Devotions. The Bible. All good stuff, but still a bit sideways. Sideways, in the sense, that holiness is like a convertible - it's top-down. As Haggai 2 states, it is non-transferable - it must come straight down from the Lord. It is a vertical transaction. I can't get it from anyone or anything or anyplace but God.Defilement, on the other hand, is horizontal. Our lack of holiness can defile our brother, our church, our worship - everything and everyone we come into contact with. It can pass through the garment and contaminate whatever we touch. We pass this on quite easily and without much effort or conviction.
This really affected me this morning, as I prayed. I realized that I needed His holiness to descend upon me and turn me inside out. He told me to:
1. Relent: Quit trying to bring some kind of holy victory in from the side. Stop.
2. Repent: Lay out the problem completely before Him - in total honesty. Quit playing the hiding game with the compromises in my life. Open up.
3. Retent: Like Christ pitched His tent in the world, I need to pitch my tent in Him. I need to stop trying to win the victory horizontally. It has to be from Him, from the top. Dwell in Him.
This was a good and necessary lesson for me, and for the first time in a long time it dropped me face to the floor in repentance. I recognized that faith in His finished work is the key and I recovenanted to tabernacle in Him.
Again: while contamination is a horizontal, holiness can only be a vertical transaction.
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