Called to Be Set Apart, Part 1

****This is from a talk that I gave to a women's gathering this past Monday night. While some received it and are contemplating it, some have rejected it altogether. Either way is okay, for it was for me to simply put it out there, to challenge, and to give us all something to chew on. We are all still bonded by the blood of Christ that covers us, and I will cling to that. Enjoy.***


I am a firm lover of the Word of God. I stand in awe of its transformational power for our individual lives, because I am living proof of it. If there ever was a mess in life, it was me. Many of you already know my story or have heard my testimony shared before, but so that everyone is on the same page, I’ll give you the nutshell version.

I didn’t grow up in the church, necessarily, but had some rather rough beginnings. At the age of 18, I was a victim of rape, and rather than talk to someone and seek help, I self-medicated with any drug or alcohol I could get my hands on. By the time I was 19 years old I could not stand to be sober and could not imagine life without my drugs. I was very scared, hateful and angry to everyone who dared cross my path. I moved out to Tucson in the summer of ’97 with my family, supposedly for a fresh start, but all it meant for me was fresh set of drug dealers.

In December of 1999, though, everything changed. Jesus met me in such a desperate place, in such a desperate way, that all I could say was, “If you don’t save me, I know I’ll die. I just know that I’ll die.” Thus began the transformation of me, with God systematically cleaning out the dross of my life and replacing it with a little bit more of a reflection of him.

I tell you this so that no one in here makes the mistake of thinking that I’ve got it all together. I was an absolute wreck of a life, and on many levels, am still quite a mess. But by God’s grace, He has transformed me into something that He chooses to use for His glory, and continues to transform me by the power of His Word and His grace and mercy in my life.

I have come to realize through this journey that when God is trying to teach me something new, He generally sets up themes for me to learn from. This is probably because I am such a hard head, but it just seems to take me a while to catch on to something new. So, these past few months, He has graciously been speaking to me about being set apart. And since He’s been speaking to me about, I’m going to share it with you.

The reason being is that this is a huge concept, and I am finding that it is increasingly difficult to put into practice in this day and age. When God speaks in His Word about us being His chosen people, being a royal priesthood, being a sanctified nation, what does that look like in normal, everyday lives? How do we live that out? Are we living that out?

I do not pretend to have any answers here. I am not a professional theologian and I am not paid clergy. I am a seeker of truth, and I am hoping that, if nothing else, I raise up lots of questions within you to struggle with. Maybe together, as a people united, we can struggle together and flesh out what it means to be set apart.

Let’s start by looking at some Scripture to determine what it is that God actually said in His Word to us as His children. We’re going to start in Exodus:

- Exodus 19:5-6 – Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
- God called His people a “treasured possession unto Him.” They were distinct as a holy nation, made distinct among the nations by the lives that they lived and the ways that they interacted with each other.

- Leviticus 20:26 – You are to be holy to me because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own.
- KJV – for I the Lord am holy, and have severed you from other people.
• The Hebrew word for severed, and set apart is badal – separate, divide, to make a distinction, difference, to withdraw from, to set apart
• God severed His people apart from the other nations, to be different, withdrew them from the people around them.

- Deuteronomy 7:6 – For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.

- Deuteronomy 10:14-15 – To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. Yet the Lord set his affection on your forefathers and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations, as it is today.

It is here that we are going to make the transition from the Hebrew Scriptures to the New Covenant. So where we have seen the Word of the Lord speaking about a holy nation, He has been speaking directly to Israel. But here we see that He is also referring to us, as followers of Christ, as being part of that holy nation.

- Galatians 3:28-29 – There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

- 1 Peter 2:9 – But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

So, if this is the Word, what do we do with it? How now shall we live according to the Word which we have heard? What does it mean for us as followers of Christ to live lives that are holy unto the Lord, set apart for Him, distinct among the peoples? I don’t know about you, but I find it very easy to look just like everyone else.

Even the ancient Israelites struggled with that. Look at 1 Samuel 8, starting in verse 4 through the end of the chapter.

Here is a nation that was called out by the King of kings Himself. YAHWE literally severed the nation of Israel from all the other nations, withdrew them from other peoples, fought battles on their behalf, and led them to the land that had been promised to them for centuries. He had called them by name to be different from the other nations, and yet their cry was to look like all the other nations. Their request to be like everyone else.

I don’t know about you, but I find it very easy to get into routines and habits here, to-do lists, chores and errands, so that really and truly, at the end of the day, my life doesn’t look much different than my neighbor, who doesn’t know Christ. Now don’t get me wrong. I’ll wake up early, on a good day, and have my quiet time with the Lord. We pray before we eat a meal and give thanks at the end of the day.

But what about the rest of the day, the part of the day where I actually have to interact with the world to get my chores and errands done? Am I set apart? Would anybody else be able to identify me as a follower of Christ, other than by the cross around my neck? So what does it mean for us, in this day and age, to be a holy nation? How did Christ intend for us to live?

...to be continued tomorrow.
Grace and peace, y'all.