Standing Apart from Everyone Else

Wendy Blight

"You are to be holy to me because I, the LORD, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own." Leviticus 20:26 (NIV 1984)

Our daughter got the call ... the invitation she had been waiting for. It was the party everyone wanted to go to and she'd been invited!

She was so excited. However, one step remained: securing her parents' permission. She knew it would be difficult. But she was sure once she explained the significance of the invitation, we would say "yes."

We did not.

"Everyone else is going. I will be the only one not there. It's not fair!" To which, we firmly replied, "We are not like everyone else. There will be no parental supervision. You absolutely may not go."

This happened often throughout our daughter's middle and high school years. And because she could not always do what everyone else did, she often felt left out.

As her parents, we were establishing boundaries and limits. Our actions, though hard at times, taught her a powerful biblical truth: Because we don't belong to everyone else, we don't live like everyone else.

If Jesus Couldn’t Sin, Why Was He Tested?

J. Vernon McGee

It was impossible for Jesus to sin. In Luke 1:35, Mary was told “that holy thing” that will be conceived by the Holy Spirit is the Son of God. He was “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners” (Hebrews 7:26). 


It is rank heresy to say that Jesus Christ could sin or that He had any sin in Him. He was in all points like we are, except for one: He was not contaminated with sin.

Jesus was not tempted to see if He would fall. He was tempted to show that He could not fall: "The prince of this world comes, and has nothing in me" (John 14:30). 


After He had lived a life down here for thirty-three years, Satan came with this temptation, a temptation that appealed to man's total personality—the physical side, the mental side, and the spiritual side of man.

The Lord Jesus could not fall, and the testing was given to demonstrate that He could not fall. If He could have fallen, then any moment your salvation and mine is in doubt. 

KNOWING WHO I AM IN CHRIST

I am complete in Him Who is the Head of all principality and power (Colossians 2:10).

I am alive with Christ (Ephesians 2:5).

I am free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2).

I am far from oppression, and fear does not come near me (Isaiah 54:14).

I am born of God, and the evil one does not touch me (1 John 5:18).

I am holy and without blame before Him in love (Ephesians 1:4; 1 Peter 1:16).

I have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16; Philippians 2:5).

I have the peace of God that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7).

I have the Greater One living in me; greater is He Who is in me than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4).