Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy grounds. (Exodus 3:5)

A true understanding of God comes with the genuine and healthy fear of Him in His consecration of being separated and blamelessness in regards to sin.

In the revelation of His presence the purity of His holiness is manifested and that is why when Moses heard God speaking to him he was told to take off his sandals, because the land on which His glory was manifested became a holy grounds to Moses.

The presence of the Most Holy God was so sacred that even the ground underneath His feet became a territory where His holiness was sanctifying. But why did Moses need to take off his sandals? What was behind this unusual request? Did Mosses’ sandals contain a specific uncleanness? Why this unusual request did was being made in the middle of the dessert where all was nothing but dirt? This great meeting of God with Moses and this command of a barefoot standing before Him is also mentioned in the testimony of Steven in Acts. 7:33. Why? I believe this very simple command of the Lord spoke of a very important aspect of our faith that is commonly neglected in today’s Christianity.   To our utter shame God’s presence in the New Covenant Church has been reduced so low, and therefore a cheap version of His grace has completely taken us captive in regards to His true identity. Fear of the Lord has replaced itself with a counterfeit gospel that is being preached through many in this last hour. No awe of the Lord is being preached and therefore majority approach Him in a very casual manner. Taking off of one’s sandals in the ancient times signified of entering a holy or a pure environment or a place where the outside dirt could not be brought in. Its spiritual significance although is wide, yet the greatest of all is the absence of pollution and dirt where holiness dwells. Many high priests in their worship to the Lord took off their shoes meaning they were not bringing any worldly filth or unconfessed sin where the presence of the Lord abided. Here in this passage of Exodus chapter 3 verse 5 the LORD was saying to Moses take off what you have gained from the world, its filth, its dust and all you have collected all your life, since to approach the presence of the Lord you need to leave them off of My premises. I Am a Holy God and to approach Me in lawlessness and sin would cause you to die. This is also why when the two sons of Aaron the priest approached the altar of the Lord drunk they were both stricken dead. Today the same principal applies, but in the spirit realm first. The Bible says in the New Covenant the Church is the pillar and ground of His truth, and those

who approach Me there in continual un repented sin shall be consumed by My Holiness. Today there is no longer a need to sacrifice a lamb and place its blood on the door posts of our homes. In this New Covenant the blood of the eternal Lamb Messiah Yeshua (Jesus Christ of Nazareth) has been placed at the door posts of our hearts. Anyone who ignores this truth by walking in willful unconfessed sin will be eventually cast out and consumed by Him who says “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through faith in the appropriating blood of His Son”. In Exodus 3 the LORD was saying to Moses His servant do not approach Me with your own righteousness stained by the rebellion of this fallen world. Take off your shoes (Sandals). Meaning take off what can strike you dawn in My holy presence. Do not approach My holiness in a sinful state of lawlessness or in rebellion of the world.

This careless approach of the holiness of our God is what can strike us dead. Today unfortunately many are allured by Satan with this false gospel of cheap grace into living a complete life of sinfulness of the flesh, yet expecting to live in His presence. The two sons of Aaron the High Priest, the brother of Moses died in their casual approach to the holy things of God and that is why we too need to be very careful in coming to Him with an un repented heart.

The book of Hebrews directed to Christian Jews and the gentile bride of Christ says that our God is still the same in all His attributes and character. That is why a common approach to His holiness is still a dangerous thing. Why is this warning given to the Hebrew believers first, because to them the blood of Christ could not have meant as holy as the former way of worship. They could think less Of what they did not see repeated year after year in their physical temple. I see this phenomenon working also with the Muslim converts to Christianity. To a convert from Islam the grace brought to them for salvation can many times mean a very common thing, since after their “Shariat Law” it could seem as a license to live according to the flesh and they can soon be cut off due to this false understanding of this new found spiritual law of freedom of grace. To a legalistic Jew or to a Muslim the only restrainer of the works of the flesh is the fear of punishment of the law, and when that is taken away somehow they can misinterpret their new found grace and its significance confusing it with a very false and fabricated religion. This is why Paul in Romans 8:1 says those who live according to the flesh will die, but those who live according to the spirit shall suffer no condemnation. Moses and Aaron represent the Law and the priesthood and The necessity of them to stand barefoot before the Shakhinah glory of the Lord. This meant their approach to God was to remind them His holiness, which would cause them to fear Him in His separation from our sinful state. The reason the book of Hebrews mentions “He came in the likeness of the sinful flesh” is that the Hebrew believers would not count His incarnation a step down into sinful nature and His participation of the human depravity. Here the author of the book of Hebrews once again is saying even Jesus in His humanity was only given a body like ours, yet it remained unable to participate in sin. This to a Jew spoke of continued holiness even in His mortality.

Here is where many of us are bound. We on constant basis are not reminded of His omnipresence and therefore we are prone to falling into sin. Here is where the presence and the power of The Holy Spirit come to our aid and it is by this acknowledgment that we war or warfare against sin and its desire of us.

But if we are not spiritually alert and are passive in our understanding of the fear of the Lord we would fail by living an unrighteous life of lawlessness while confessing Him as our Savior and King. “A true deadly trap” This is why the writer of the letter to the Hebrew’s says in the 27^th to 29th verse of chapter 12 the following words. “Therefore since we are receiving a Kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire.” What? What is our God? “A consuming fire” I thought our God is love? What happened to His love? How could He be both? I thought God forgives us and what is this consuming fire business here?

This is where many are trapped in a one sided gospel of a false grace. Here is where the Jew and the gentile need to look into this grace based salvation with the eye salve bought from the Lord and not what men are selling them.

In the temple worship of the Old Covenant many high priests fell dead in the sanctuary of the living God, because they continued to approach His Holiness with unconfessed and un renounced sin. The priests who came to approach the presence of the Lord in the inner sanctuary of the physical temple died, how much more now when we come into His presence with habitual sin in our hearts. Ananias and Saphira are the Biblical examples of the New Testament Church who forged a lie and regarded it not important to be spoken before a God who is the consuming fire. Today unfortunately many who play Russian roulette before the Living God are soon to find out that their game is going to be over and the Holiness of God is going to soon consume them in their lack of true repentance. God’s glory is about to hit the Church of this last days like never before, but a casual treatment of His holiness is going to cost many their very lives. As when Jacob running away to his uncle saw the magnificence of the Lord’s presence and woke up to make an oath, so should we. We the Church of the Living God need to wake up from our slumber in seeing the vision of His glory and through it we need to call this heavenly vision and the land we experience it the “ Bethel” or the gate of heaven and rising up we need to make a vow of dependence upon His Holy Spirit to guide us in all holiness and reverential fear before Him.

May we be divinely awakened with a hunger and a thirst for His true righteousness in a fervent zeal for stepping up to a new level of holiness in all godliness?

May the Church take off her sandals realizing finally that the land that they are standing on is holy grounds, and stop walking or standing on it with the filth of the flesh?