October 21

Read: II Corinthians 6:16-18

You shall be my own people… I will keep you clear of all your impurities (Ezekiel 36:28-29, Moffatt).

Ye Shall Be My People

A lad from a drunken home had been befriended by a passing stranger. In his effort to thank his new friend, the boy said wistfully, “Mister, I sure wish you were my dad.” Here is echoed one of life’s deepest heart cries. We need to belong, to be loved, to be important to somebody.

There are those who never know the security of belonging to a loving home, but no man needs to be an orphan from God. The divine promise is, “You shall be my own people.”

But how shall we know this assurance that comes from belonging to the family of God? The answer is clear. “This thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice… and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you” (Jeremiah 7:23). The closer we walk to God, the deeper is our sense of belonging to Him. Holiness, on our part, is simply to give ourselves to God as completely as we know how. Sanctification means to separate ourselves from all that is unlike God and to accept His promise to keep us cleansed from sin.

To commit myself to do the whole will of God; to be able to invite God to look into my heart and to know that He will find there no opposition to His will, nothing but deep love and a real desire to serve Him — this is what it means to be a sanctified child of God. This is the new Garden of Eden on earth. That blessed fellowship makes the heart sing:

And He walks with me, and He talks with me, And He tells me I am His own, And the joy we share as we tarry there, None other has ever known.*

— C. Austin Miles

*Copyright 1940, renewal, The Rodeheaver Co. Used by permission.