Joshua 5:15
The commander of the Lord's army replied, "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy." And Joshua did so.
When Joshua encountered the Lord, the Lord asked him to remove his sandals, because the land where he stood was holy. It was originally just an ordinary place, but the throne of the Lord was established, it became holy. Wherever the Lord set up His throne, God makes it holy. That's why, in Isaiah chapter 6, when Isaiah met the Lord and saw that the Lord sat high up in the throne, he said "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips..." Isaiah had such an experience because the Lord's light of holiness shined on him.
If a person wants to be used by God, he needs to be first cleansed by God. Holiness is not a standard that we can achieve by ourselves, for it always must begin with knowing the holiness of the Lord. If a person doesn't know the Lord's holiness, it'd be like cleaning a room in the dark. You'd always feel that the room is clean and nothing needs to change. When the light of the Holy Spirit shines upon you, however, we'd see our filthiness. In the same way, when we see our filthiness and decay inside, we will humble ourselves. No excuse from the past is justifiable and there's nothing we can boast about ourselves before God. That is truly the first step of holiness. Next, we also need to obey God. When God wants Joshua to remove his sandals, Joshua followed. In the same way, when the light of the Holy Spirit shines on us, we also need to obey God and remove the darkness from our lives. In other word, we should no longer have a hardened and rebellious heart.
Holiness is a lesson that we need to learn for the rest of our lives. Some people will live in sin all their live and never understand God's will for holiness. Others live their life always fearful of not being holy enough, and are thus filled with sense of guilt. Actually, we need to understand that it is the Lord's Holy Spirit that makes us holy. We don't need to live in the fear that we might not be unholy, because there's no way that we can become holy overnight. Holiness is a process, and in this process we just need to be sensitive to the voice and light from the Lord, obey His guidance, and God's Spirit will make us more mature in our spiritual life. Joshua was not a completely holy man, but when he was willing to obey, he became holy because of the Holy Spirit inside him, and thus he was able to be used by God.
Lord, may your Holy Spirit shine upon us now so that we can see our darkness inside. May the Lord's light of the Spirit shine inside us and cleanse us, so that we may become vessel of holiness and be used by you. I thank you and I pray in the victorious name of Jesus, amen!
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