Set Apart: As Holy

Welcome to the Season of Lent! These are the set apart days leading up to Easter. ‘Set apart’ in the sense that these weeks are different from any other on our church calendar because they serve as a time to focus on the passion of Christ – His sufferings on our behalf. His death for the defeat of sin. His resurrection so we can live.

‘Set apart’ because these forty days between Ash Wednesday and Easter* are holy. Much like the forty days Jesus fasted and prayed in the wilderness, Lent is meant to be our time of fasting and praying* – not just as a rule but, rather, from a posture of leaning closer into our Father’s heart. To remember. To repent. To receive. To be renewed. 

Throughout Lent we will explore many ways that the Gospel of Luke helps us not only better understand the ‘set apart’ aspect of God’s holiness but also to embrace more fully our own call to live set apart in the world; because we are His, we too are holy. Therefore, we’ll do a deeper dive into all ‘things’ belonging to God – His places, objects, and days, His people! – with the hope of igniting within us a deeper reverence for the hallowedness of the God we follow and worship and trust.

Holy Separation

There was that unforgettable moment when Isaiah was swept up into God’s heavenly throne room, where his ears and heart were flooded by the constant refrain, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty” (Isaiah 6:3). The singing seraphim were so overtaken by the purity, the sheer holiness of the Almighty One upon the throne that they covered their faces as they worshiped (v.2). 

Of all the things the angels could have been praising God for, the fact that it was His holiness tells us much. They didn’t sing “just, just, just is the Lord God Almighty.” Nor did they praise Him for being “wise, wise, wise.” In truth, nothing else in all of Scripture compares to this thrice-repeated phrase. Nothing else is given such emphasis.¹ Only God. And only His holiness.

In other words, ‘holy’ describes the essence of God that is first and foremost Him.² ‘Holy’ is what sets God apart from everything and everyone else.

Holy. Holy. Holy.

If we took the fifty-thousand foot view of this particular Hebrew word for ‘holy’, qadosh, we’d see the simplest of definitions: separation. Not just any separation but that ‘of God’.¹ All things related to God are to be seen “as separate, apart, and so sacred.”²  

God has always been set apart from humanity because of His ‘otherness’ – His transcendent nature, far and above all of us. But when sin entered the world, the separation between humanity and God became a literal absence of presence. Yet, God’s holiness laces every decision He makes, every plan He unleashes to close the gap between Himself and us. 

And, of course, Jesus embodies this holiness. He becomes the source for bringing believers closer to their God – and to be set apart for Him. 

Holy to the Lord

Luke opens his Gospel identifying a special, set apart time in history. After four hundred years of God’s silence, we witness God breaking-in on first century Israel by sending an angel to speak for Him. At last. And to a priest (Luke 1:8-11).

Let’s pause there and look back. Let us recall that during the days of Moses, God not only announced that Israel would live as a set apart nation in the world – because they were His people – but that the Levites would serve as priests in the tabernacle. These priests lived set apart within their own nation, called to live in holier ways because of their nearness to God’s presence in the tabernacle. 

And set apart within the priesthood was the High Priest – a man appointed by God to serve Him in the most holy of ways, in the most holy of places. The holiness of God radiated out from Himself to all who belonged to Him:

On the chance that anyone might forget the holy anointing of the High Priest, God gifted artisans to craft priestly garments that only the High Priest would wear. A robe. The ephod. A turban. And on that turban, a medallion of pure gold, “the sacred diadem,” engraved like a seal with the phrase “HOLY TO THE LORD” (Exodus 28:36, 39:30). 

Set apart as Holy to the Lord. 

As the days of Israel marched onward, holiness was forgotten more than not. Even High Priests failed to live holy lives. In fact, in the generations before Israel’s exile, the priests were the ones leading Israel in apostasy, in the worship of pagan gods.³ Israel and their priests chose again and again to live as the world did, refusing to live set apart.

And, eventually, God gave them over to their desires, allowing them to be carried off to the lands of the very pagans they had desired to mimic. The Jews were, literally, no longer identifiable. They no longer stood out among the other nations because the longer they lived among them, the more they looked just like them.

Even then, God did not give up on the people He still claimed as His own. In the midst of their exile, God sent prophets to speak words of revelation, repentance, and return to God. One of those prophets, Zechariah, encouraged the exiled Israelites with visions of a future with God – with His presence returned to His people, in the Temple of Jerusalem. 

Zechariah’s final vision peered further into the future, to the day of Messiah’s glorious arrival – to the days when He will cast plagues and droughts upon unbelieving nations and restore Jerusalem to all who arrive within its walls “to worship the King, the Lord Almighty” (Zechariah 14:5-17). The picture of Zechariah’s end times vision describes the Lord on the throne and all things in Jerusalem made holy. 

“This holiness will be so pervasive that even the smallest object such as bells on a horse’s neck will be inscribed as ‘HOLY TO THE LORD’” (v.20).¹ Such a vision gives us much to look forward to – a day when holiness flows freely from God to every one of His children, over every object, encompassing every space and place. 

Between the days of Moses and this final scene of Christ’s return, lay faithful people of God doing all they can to live holy. So it is that in the opening pages of Luke’s Gospel, we’re given a glimpse of the priest who is honored for being “upright in the sight of God” (Luke 1:6). The priest and his wife are singled out for their blamelessness and given the blessing of receiving God’s first spoken message in four centuries.

Turn the page in Luke, and we get to watch another faithful family carry their firstborn son to the Temple for presentation as commanded by God’s law. Mary and Joseph arrive with eight-day-old Baby Jesus, who is “to be consecrated to the Lord”, and watch this – in the Greek this phrase reads, “shall be called holy to the Lord” (Luke 2:23). 

Oh, how I love the way God’s Word is woven with beautiful threads of God’s holy nature and redemptive heart. From beginning to end, God demonstrates that those who give their hearts to Him, are deemed holy. That means, my friends, we are part of this God-made tapestry! The moment we believed Jesus to be our Lord and Savior, we “were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 1:13). 

This side of the cross, “HOLY TO THE LORD” signifies a shift from a physical, priestly inscription to a spiritual dedication of all believers.² Paul helps us understand it this way:

“You…have been called by God to be his own holy people. He made you holy by means of Christ Jesus, just as he did for all people everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

1 Corinthians 1:2 NLT

Because the ceremonial law under the old covenant has been fulfilled in Christ, we are no longer bound by it. However, we are God’s holy people, and we are meant to set apart as holy all that we are – our bodies, hearts, minds, spirits, homes, families…you get the idea.¹  

We don’t need special clothing or a gold medallion to signify that we are HOLY TO THE LORD because we have God’s Spirit in us. We don’t have to earn this set apart title because God has shared with us what is His – holiness. But what we do want in our lives are practices that help us grow spiritually and remain anchored in our faith, tethered to God. As we mature in our own holiness, our outward lives transform. We begin to act more like Jesus. We start looking different from the world around us, identifiable as God’s people.

Friends, we are the exiles now (1 Peter 2:11). Scattered all over the world, we – the holy people of God – have been set apart for a God-filled life (1 Corinthians 1:2 MSG). We are set apart as holy to the Lord. 

Lord God Almighty, when we read your Holy Word and see themes and phrases that pop up again and again, we recognize that your hand had a major role in what was written. Across the miles and generations, your Word is knit together by your Spirit, flowing with form and function like no other book ever. From beginning to end, we see that You’ve always wanted a people to call your own. You have always desired a relationship with humanity – one based on respect and reverence, loyalty and love, truth and grace. We also marvel at the fact that Israel’s history that seems so long ago, so far from us, actually helps us see ourselves more clearly. We recognize within ourselves the tendency to want to be like everyone else, to NOT stand out for your sake. So, today we repent and embrace the reality that we are like exiles in this world. As your children, we are no longer held within the boundaries of one nation; we are scattered around the whole world. Our home is with You, so as long as we are living this life on earth, we are meant to live set apart as holy for You – right where we are. To live differently. To act differently. To look like Jesus. Holy Spirit, be our Helper in this endeavor. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
(inspired by 2 Timothy 3:16; Deuteronomy 7:6; 1 Peter 2; Exodus 28:36; Zechariah 14:20; Acts 1:8; 1 Corinthians 1:2)

*Lent is a little more than seven weeks on a calendar, but we get ‘forty days’ by taking out the Sundays, which are seen as mini-Easters – days to rejoice and feast. The practices of fasting and praying during Lent find their source in ancient Christian traditions, and we will talk about them more in this series. As with anything we pick up as practices in our Christian traditions, we must both guard against legalism and casualness. Fasting and praying are no different. We don’t want to do them as a strict, check-box duty because that keeps us from delighting in the Lord and encountering Him personally. We also don’t want to do them without any thought of their holiness because then we are apt to look at our fasts as ‘spiritual’ health habits or things to brag about or as something we simply do before Easter. I invite each of us to consider with the Lord what He would have us fast this Lent – then remember the fasting itself carves out space for us to engage with the Lord more deeply in prayer. (Fasting and Praying will be our ‘Rhythms’ throughout the series. See below.)

Resources: I love sharing with you the books, podcasts, articles, and anything else that has inspired, encouraged, or taught me. These are humble offerings with no expectations.

• 1 – From the CS Lewis Institute article on “The Holiness of God”
• 2 – Biblehub on qadosh
• 3 – Biblehub article on “Idolatrous Priests”
• We have a new Spotify playlist for Lent, called Set Apart As Holy. This is a playlist packed with Lenten and Easter-themed songs as well as songs that will pick up our various weekly “Set Apart” themes. Our playlist opens with Bristol House’s “Holy Liturgy,” which picks up with that throne room anthem — “holy, holy, holy” — and leads us through Christ’s suffering and resurrection. It’s a perfect opening song for this series. The second song, “Set Apart” by Citylight Worship, picks up this particular aspect of holiness that we’ll camp out in for these next weeks. It’s rare to find a song that focuses on one aspect of Lent or Jesus or our call to be holy, but it’s been fun to find songs and curate this playlist so that there is some flow — in theme and narrative. May this be a set apart playlist for each of us this Lent!
• Each Wednesday I upload a “Teacup” teaching video that carries on the topic here. You can find all the videos on my Facebook Author Page, Instagram, and YouTube.
• Many of you have found me on Substack. Thank you so much! And, if you’d like to listen to (rather than read) these weekly posts, you can do so on Substack. It’s easy to see and use the audio bar across the top of each post. While you’re on Substack, check out the ministry I’m blessed to be part of, the Devoted Collective.
• My monthly newsletter, The Abiding Life, goes to email inboxes the first week of each month to those who have subscribed on my website. I also post them on Substack. My most recent edition can be found there, and you can subscribe for future newsletters on Substack, here.

Rhythms: As my newsletter’s title infers, we seek to develop an abiding life in this space — a place where we can get informed but also be transformed as we learn to abide in God’s presence throughout our days. I like to think that developing rhythms is one way to aid us in our desire to become more Christlike.

• It’s Lent, so it makes sense that we’d pick up the spiritual rhythms of fasting and praying. Whatever we choose to fast — food, phone, TV, etc — let’s remember that this is a spiritual practice. Not a diet or a demand or a duty. Fasting is a holy surrender of self to all that God is. May whatever we fast draw us closer to the God we worship. May it lead us into holy conversations with the Lord we love!

• We’re all called to share the truth about who Jesus is. One way you can do that is by sharing this site and telling others your own stories of faith experiences. May we use our whole selves to tell others about our holy God!!

Featured Photo by Eduardo Flores on Unsplash. “All the Bits and Pieces” Photo by Aleksandra Sapozhnikova on Unsplash.
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