Holiness & Purity (Leviticus 15:31)

Thus you shall keep the people of Israel separate from their uncleanness, lest they die in their uncleanness by defiling my tabernacle that is in their midst.
—Leviticus 15:31

So this chapter, Leviticus 15, is filled with detailed instructions regarding cleanness before the Lord and cleanness before others. As I read through it, I realize, first, that we must be careful to remember the context.

These cleanness laws in the book of Leviticus had a practical purpose. The people of Israel did not have, for example, antibiotics in the way that we do today, and that affects how one responds to infection. Consider a camp of two million people. One infection could lead to the spread of sickness and disease that could kill thousands or even tens of thousands. So there were laws for quarantining people when they had a particular sickness. God, in his kindness and pastoral care for his people, was practically providing for hundreds of thousands of individuals. There were good purposes behind these laws.

But as I read through them, I also think: cleanness is important—not only before one another. That is the whole point of Leviticus. Cleanness is important before God. That is why he said, “…lest they die in their uncleanness by defiling my tabernacle that is in their midst.” It was essential for God’s people to realize that cleanness before him was necessary for communion with him.

I think about that in my own life, and I encourage you to think about it in yours. Are we zealous to be clean, pure, and holy? Or do we sometimes grow content or complacent with sin—with a lack of purity in small ways here or there, a lack of holiness in small ways, at least in our minds?

Leviticus beckons us to say, “No—be zealous to be clean before God,” while knowing that this is only possible through who Jesus is and what he has done on the cross for us. That is precisely the point. In Christ, we want to live clean. We want to live holy. We want to live pure before God and before others around us.

So we pray: God, make us clean. I pray this in my own life, and I pray this for all who are listening right now. God, make us clean, we pray—by the blood of Christ that covers our sin, and by the power of Christ living in us through your Holy Spirit. Help us to turn from sin and from temptation today. God, please help us to walk cleanly, purely, and holy before you.

Help us to run from every temptation to sin—not to flirt with it, rationalize it, or toy with it. Help us to flee from it. We pray that you would make us a people who are increasingly unstained by sin.

O God, like the psalmist, make us a people with clean hands and pure hearts—with clean minds, pure desires, right motives, faithful actions, and gracious words. We pray that we would be clean in every way all day long today by your power in us, Lord Jesus.

And God, we pray that you would use us today to share the good news of how people can be made clean by your grace. Give us boldness to share the gospel with someone today.

A Prayer for the Yemeni Arabs

God, we also pray for the spread of this gospel around the world. Specifically today, we intercede for Yemeni Arabs—for more than nine million people in a country marked by suffering, war, poverty, and oppression. God, please cause the gospel—your mercy and your grace—to spread among Yemeni Arabs. We plead for salvation to spread there. Strengthen the small number of our brothers and sisters who are there, and multiply their number.

Raise up more laborers for the harvest field among them.

God, we pray all of this as those who have been made clean—not by our works, but by your blood, Lord Jesus; by your grace and your mercy in our lives. So help us to live in the cleanness you have made possible for us.

In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.