Set Apart

In my last post I asked the following question: How will people know we are “set apart”, if we appear to be just like everybody else? As I mentioned then, The Lord has been stirring something in me for a few weeks now, and it is around this idea of being “set apart”. These two words just keep coming up over and over again in my reading, my studying and my prayers.

I’ve landed on two parts to this that we’ll dive into. First, what being set apart looks like for us as individuals (and the benefits of being thus), and second, why it’s so important to the world-at-large that we be so. It’s the latter piece that I feel God is really impressing on me to understand and to eventually share. But for today, we’re going to focus on the first part – what does it look like, and what are its benefits?

While there are lots of scriptures we could draw on to look at this, we’re going to focus on one key verse. In the words of David…

You can be sure of this:

The Lord set apart the godly for himself.

The Lord will answer when I call to him.

(Psalm 4:3 NLT)

I really like how the Amplified version elaborates a bit on this verse…

But know that the Lord has set apart for Himself [and dealt wonderfully with] the godly man [the one of honorable character and moral courage—the one who does right].

The Lord hears and responds when I call to Him.

(Psalm 4:3 AMP)

The logician in me loves to find and pull out those if/then, cause and effect passages in the Bible. The verse at the center of Living Unfiltered for God is, of course, one of them, “Blessed rather, are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” (Luke 11:28 NIV).

IF we hear and obey His word, THEN we will be blessed. Simple enough, right? (We’ll, the logic is simple, anyway!)

So, according to David’s words above, the set apart (which David certainly was) are those that are considered “godly” (also David). Thanks to the amplified version, we have a better idea of what specifically that means. To be godly means to be of “honorable character”, have “moral courage” and to “do right.” Let’s pause here a minute – don’t rush through this. Are these characteristics that you have and exhibit? What do you think it means to be of “honorable character”? Or to “do right”? I suspect we could all agree pretty quickly on what these mean, in a practical sense. And we could also probably be able to detect the presence – or absence – of these traits in ourselves, or others, relatively easily.

What about “moral courage” though? This cuts a little deeper – and more-so than we will give space to at this juncture. Suffice it to say for now, that moral courage is tough to discern – it’s not necessarily readily seen in others or even in ourselves, (at least if we’re honest). It is, however, what the world really needs of us right now, which is why a more detailed discussion of this will come when we tackle the second aspect of being “set apart”, in a future post.

Now for the good part – the actual benefit of being set apart… The then part of the if-then: “The Lord hears and responds when I call to Him.” When the godly, set apart person calls, God will hear and respond! No fear of God not hearing your prayers, your pleas, or your petitions. No wondering about whether or not God will respond. The Bible says He will! He WILL respond… if we live set apart.

Doesn’t that encourage you? Doesn’t that give you hope? We all need more hope these days. And the world needs us, as Christians, to exhibit that hope. As was spoken by one of my Pastors at church this morning, “We need to be hope-filled so that the world around us can see it and no longer be hope-less.” Pastor Tiffany was exactly right. And we can’t do that if we don’t live set apart.

This provides a little foreshadowing of the next post, where I’ll address in more detail why the world needs us, as Christians and “The Church”, to live this way. I really do believe we are in a “such a time as this” moment.

In the meantime, I pray that you walk more confidently knowing that by living in a godly manner, you can be assured that God hears you… and He will respond to you.