Sanctified

I believe that the Bible is very clear about God's nature - specifically what His priorities are.  One of God's top priorities, if not His #1 priority, is to bring glory to Himself.  If someone says that about me, that's a terrible thing.  But with God, it's a terrible thing if we can't say that about Him.

Anyway, since that is such a huge priority on God's list, probably one of our highest priorities should in turn be to bring glory to God.  It's what we were made for, the Baptist catechism would say it is "the chief end of man."  I have really thought about that for a long time because it is really hard for me to get my head around the idea of glorifying someone more than me - I go to S.A. (Sinner's Anonymous - meeting on Sunday mornings at a church near you!) to deal with it.

As if that weren't a hard enough thing for me, I stumbled across a verse in Leviticus 10 that really has been eating at me and making me come back to my priorities and look hard at what I do with my attentions and affections.

"Then Moses said to Aaron, 'This is what the Lord has said, "Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified."'  And Aaron held his place."

What?  You mean regular people who aren't Christians are glorifying God?  Yes.  All of His creation shouts His glory just by existing and being His creation.  So, that is something that I still  need to seek with my life.

But what really made me stop and think was "Among those who are near me I will be sanctified."  That brings all kinds of thoughts to my mind, but the biggest one of all is that because I am a Christian, because I know the incredible qualities of God, because I am near to Him, I need to be sanctifying God with my life.

Now, I wasn't sure what sanctify meant.  I had a general idea, but I looked it up to be sure.

"to set apart, to make holy"

I'm not saying that I can make God more holy by doing something, but where is my focus?  Am I seeking to set Him apart in my life, to lift Him up to the place He deserves?  Or do I put myself on a pedestal and set myself apart as special?  Am I seeing God as holy, worthy of praise, deserving of glory?  Or do I treat Him like a parent or grandparent who is supposed to praise me when I do something good?

I have this whole new mindset now.