When a man or woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazarite, to separate himself to the Lord . . . All the days of his separation he is holy to the Lord.
(Numbers 6:2, 8)
The title Nazarite, naziyr, literally means consecrated one or devotee. Certain men or women of Israel would take this vow as a vow of special devotion to the Lord. The actions of those who took this vow were distinctly different from those around them. They had three prohibitions. They could not partake of anything coming from grapes. They could not cut their hair. They could not go near a dead body.
Every believer, has been sanctified by the Lord at the moment of salvation (1 Corinthians 6:11). In 1 Corinthians 6:11, the word sanctified, hagiazo, refers to being consecrated, set apart from the profaned things and dedicated to God. It is a statement of a believer’s title as a Christian. As the Nazarite was to live up to his title, Christians, by God’s grace, are to live up to their high calling in devotion to the Lord.
Today, we need men and women that are truly and deeply devoted to the Lord. While we in the church age do not take the Nazarite prohibitions literally, we must understand their principle. Devoted believers will stand out from the world around them and they will refrain from the defiled things of this world. Our conduct is a function of our devotion. The questions we must ask ourselves are these, “To whom or what am I devoted? Is it the Lord or another? Am I fully devoted to the Lord? Do my thoughts, words, and actions reflect such devotion?”
Renewing the Heart 