"I am the Lord who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be
holy, because I am holy." - Leviticus 11:45
On Saturday April 26, 2003, Aron Ralston set out climbing alone in Blue John
Canyon near Canyonlands National Park in southeastern Utah. It was to be a
one-day hike. But as he used rock-climbing gear to negotiate narrow canyons, the
unthinkable happened.
Ralston pushed his arm into a crack in the canyon wall, and an 800-pound boulder
shifted, pinning him. He tried using a dull pocketknife to chip away at the
boulder-without success. He tried to rig a makeshift pulley with ropes to lift
the boulder-that failed as well.
After three days, having gone through most of his three liters of water and his
food, he decided to sacrifice his arm to save his life. First bending his body
in order to break his wrist bone, he proceeded to use his knife to amputate his
arm just below the right elbow. Amazingly able to remain conscious, the
27-year-old climber applied a makeshift tourniquet and rappelled 60 feet to the
canyon floor.
"I'm not sure how I handled it,'' the mechanical engineer-turned-adventurer
said, the stump of his right arm in a sling. ''I felt pain, and I coped with it.
I moved on.''
According to Sheriff's Department Sgt. Mitch Vetere, Ralston would have died if
he had stayed in the canyon. '''He had a will to live.''
Although Jesus spoke in figurative language, he challenged his followers to make
similarly painful decisions to forsake sin and to be holy. Today in prayer, ask
the Lord to reveal anything in your life that prevents holiness in your life and
then give that sin to the Lord.
"People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do
not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and
delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift
toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call
it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it
relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking
we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we
have been liberated." - D. A. Carson
God's Word: "But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do;
for it is written: 'Be holy, because I am holy.'" - 1 Peter 1:15-16
By Peter Kennedy, Copyright 2004, Devotional E-Mail DEVOTIONS IN EXODUS,
LEVITICUS, NUMBERS AND DEUTERONOMY
pkennedy@devotional.com
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