Daily PresenceSample

In the beginning of Numbers 6, the LORD declares that anyone taking a vow to become a Nazarite must separate from certain things completely. People taking the vow could not drink wine (in fact they couldn’t eat a grape)! They couldn’t cut their hair, and they couldn’t touch anything that made them unclean. These things remained off limits until the vow ended. One took the vow willingly, but God was using the vow to teach people that true separation has no degrees. To be near God requires holiness (separation). It is the reason for the detailed sacrifices early on and the reason for Jesus, the ultimate sacrifice. Sometimes we struggle to understand why we need to be clean/separate. Maybe this will help:

Imagine going to a restaurant, and the staff comes to take your order. Living in Texas, someone is going to order iced tea (for my family that would be me). The waiter grabs a dirty glass from the table next to me and begins pouring tea into the used glass and hands it to me. I would throw a fit! I don’t want a glass from someone else’s mouth. Immediately the waiter apologizes and uses his shirt to wipe away a smudge and presents it again. Bigger fit is coming…. this glass is dirty and filthy, and someone better bring me another one. Cleaning a portion does not do the job (and by the way wiping it with a shirt isn’t cleaning). The waiter reaches for another dirty glass. This time, he proudly presents the used glass and states, “here you go…it’s much cleaner than that other one.” But that was never the point. We don’t want a glass that someone else used. It doesn’t matter if it was cleaner than another glass…we want clean and that’s a good picture of what God wants from us. He doesn’t want us cleaner than another person. It doesn’t matter what your friend did when compared to you. It doesn’t matter how much worse your boss is compared to you. God’s point of separation and holiness is like a drinking glass….He wants clean. But here is the cool thing—we are not clean on our own…and yet HE wants us! We don’t stay away from HIM because we aren’t clean. We cling to HIM because Jesus is the only way to become clean, which is what He wants.