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Leviticus 20:22-23, Keep all my decrees and laws and follow them, so that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out. You must not live according to the customs of the nations I am going to drive out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them.

This is a chapter filled with some very serious regulations.  Most, but not all, are related to sexual relations.  The penalty for sexually deviant behavior was usually death (although there isn't a lot of evidence that the death penalty was actually carried out as a result of these offenses).  To our twenty-first century, post-resurrection sensibilities, this all seems very severe.  But I have to keep returning to this point: God was forming a holy people, a nation that was so very different from the pagan cultures around them, a group of people who valued the God-given gift of creation.  Anything that even slightly resembled the pagan people groups around them, things like child sacrifice, incest, or the occult, was absolutely detestable to God.  His people were set apart. 

God still calls us to be set apart.  While we have experienced the grace of Jesus Christ, we aren't supposed to abuse our freedom.  There are still standards of behavior for God's people. It was never the plan for us to blend so nicely into our culture that no one would know who and whose we are.  How are you set apart?  What kind of changes may you need to make to live a life characterized by holiness?  Spend some time in prayer today.

Let's pray...God, holiness is what we long for and what we need.  Reveal to us the things in our life that need some adjusting.  More of you and less of me.  In Jesus' Name, Amen.