Unholy Bug

Are you constantly striving to be holy and impart your holiness to others who desperately need it?  Many say that they need to be around the sinner’s environment in order to “minister” to them.  After all, Jesus ate with the tax collectors.  Are you putting yourself in harm’s way by this way of thinking?  

The Bible specifically says that holiness is noncommunicable.
“If one carries holy meat in the fold of his garment, and with the edge he touches bread or stew, wine or oil, or any food, will it [whatever it touches] become holy?”  “Then the priests answered and said, “No.” (Hag. 2:12)

But the real danger is that unholiness is communicable and transferable.  
And Haggai said, “If one who is unclean because of a dead body touches any of these, will it be unclean?”  So the priests answered and said, “It shall be unclean.” (Hag. 2:13)

When holy and unholy come into contact, both are unholy.  When you place a drop of red food coloring into clear water, it becomes colored.  Dirty water discolors clean water, not the other way around.  Good deeds done with a wrong motive are tarnished.  If you take two children with the chicken pox and rub them up against one another, will the healthy child heal the sick child?  Quite the opposite.  When you win the lottery, by which the monies are collected through gambling, is the money blessed?  Remember, when clean and unclean come into contact, both are unclean.  It never fails that when someone comes into large sums of money through winnings, hardship inevitably follows.  The old saying goes, “if you are going to play in the mud, you are going to get dirty.”

In the world of religion, this same principle applies.  Religion states that if you undertake certain rituals and ceremonies, you can be cleansed and acceptable to God.  A religious ceremony cannot cleanse a sinner.

Grapes are not gathered from thorns (Matt. 7:16).  As a man thinks in his heart, so is he, and no ritual can change this.  Jesus specifically says that man’s heart is corrupt and “out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.  These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.”  (Mat. 15: 19-20)  Washing our hands does not make us right with God.  We are sinners in need of a Savior.  

There is only one way to be holy.  We must have a heart change.  Can we do this for ourselves or someone else?  Absolutely not.  Proverbs 20:9 says, Who can say, “I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?”  There is only one way to be holy.  Peter says, “knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” (1 Pet. 18-19)  Only the blood of Christ can wash our sins as “white as snow.” (Isa. 1:18)  

The principle here is that you can try as hard as you want to be holy or to impart holiness onto someone else.  But unless one receives the holiness of God through the shed blood of Christ, he remains defiled.  Conversely, one who is defiled can infect the undefiled.

We are not called to be Christ to someone else, but to intercede and be an example for them.  We don’t condemn others in their sinfulness, we simply guard our own hearts.  Yes, Jesus ate with the tax collectors, but Jesus is Jesus.  Be very cautious about putting yourself in situations where you can catch the unholy bug!

Copyright 2009 From My Heart To Yours