I must be regarded as holy

And Moses said to Aaron, "This is what the LORD spoke, saying: By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy; And before all the people I must be glorified. "So Aaron held his peace. – Leviticus 10v3

This is a profound passage and I suspect that I am dealing with sacred ground that I cannot possibly hope to cover in a short, simple, basic, devotional thought.

Nadab and Abihu were punished for bring a strange fire to the altar of the Lord. They did not think that His standards were important. They thought that their way was good enough. It was not really important, in their minds, to do it the way God wanted it done.

So God responds. ‘I must be regarded as holy by anyone who wants to come close to me.’ This is, as we say, heavy stuff. It is not something we can take lightly. It reminds me of the immensity of our responsibility in our relationship with a holy God.

None of us are going to be guilty of the exact same sin as Nadab and Abihu. We are not charged with burning a sacrifice. But we are responsible for even more than they are.

If we want to walk close to the Lord the key is to regard Him as holy. When it comes to dealing with sin and temptation we are wise to do all we can to protect ourselves and stay away from those things. All those guards and protections and safety measures and filters are good things.

But we are not going to have real victory until we truly regard God as holy. We cannot walk in fellowship with Him until we do so. When we regard Him as holy we see just how unholy we are in our flesh and we see just how horrendous our sin is in His eyes.

Only when we regard Him as holy can we ever hope to really walk close to Him.