The Vow of A Nazirite

“May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” ~ Galatians 6:14 (NIV)

Some people do not want an on-fire Christianity, they want a tamed one.  We live in a world where the word ‘tolerance’ has become a mantra and everyone is trying to blend in with everyone else. Jesus said ‘you are in the world but not part of this world’. Yet too many Christians are trying hard to blend in. But that type of Christianity never does anybody any good. In the bid to be respectable and acceptable to everyone it ends up helping no one. It is empty and cannot serve God or man. This hurting and lost world comes with hope to such men-pleasing faith and returns without healing. We are called to love men and be agents of God’s healing in this lost and sick world. But it is only as we learn to be separate from the system of this world and undefiled by it, that we can fulfil this calling. O how desperate the need of the harassed masses in our world today for sons and daughters of the kingdom who can bring God’s power down to save!

In Numbers 6 we read of the vow of a Nazirite – a vow of separation from the world, to the Lord. A Nazirite was never to take wine. He was not to allow anything to intoxicate his heart and blunt his love for God. A Nazirite heart has room for only one love and obsession – God. And every believer is called to be a Nazirite with a vow of separation to Christ.

Samson had a Nazirite vow upon his life, but he flirted with the world. Intoxicated by the wine of fleshy lust for the opposite sex he became unfaithful to his Master and consequently crippled in his ability to win his world for God. Samson was betrayed, disgraced and mocked by the very woman for whose love he had sacrificed his vow. When we ignore our Nazirite vow we attract shame.

The Apostle Paul was an example of one who was true to his Nazirite vow. It was his undivided devotion to the Lord Jesus that made the Governor Festus cry out “You are out of your mind, Paul!” (Acts 26:24 NIV). It was Paul’s love for his Master that made him seem mad to men and it also made men mad at him. We are mistaken if we think everybody is going to be happy with us if we are focused on pleasing Jesus. Our call is to love all men, not to please all men.

True love for man is born out of love for the Father. And you cannot walk in this love and be satisfied with the ‘normal’ Christianity that loves to play it safe and tries to blend in with the world. You cannot walk in this love and still love the world. Those two types of love are mutually exclusive.

‘Stop loving this evil world and all that it offers you, for when you love the world, you show that you do not have the love of the Father in you.  For the world offers only the lust for physical pleasure, the lust for everything we see, and pride in our possessions. These are not from the Father. They are from this evil world. And this world is fading away, along with everything it craves. But if you do the will of God, you will live forever’ (1 John 2:15-17 NLT)

Every believer is called to be a Nazirite with a vow of separation to Christ.  A Nazirite will not accept the wine the world offers:

–   the lust for physical pleasure (living to satisfy our fleshy desires and appetites),
–   the lust for everything we see (the desire to accumulate),
–   the pride in our possessions (the distorted mentality that we are what we have).

Our Lord Jesus did not try to blend in with his time. It was passionate love that made him ignore the approval of men and the lure of ‘respectability’. It was passionate love for the Father and for lost men that took him to the cross.

The call to follow Christ is not just a call to live, it is also a call to die. It is not just a call to love, it is also a call to hate. We are called to hate the perverse seductive ways of men. We are called to hate the world and all its glittering offers.

I encourage you to embrace your Nazirite call today by offering yourself without reserve to God and receiving a fresh baptism of God’s love that will result in holiness and a willingness to give your all to reach the lost around you and those in the regions beyond.