Hi Travel Companion,

Approaching God’s holiness has been a struggle. I had to fight the fear that my sin and dirtiness would contaminate His perfection. I had to fight through a mind fog where I just could not understand or articulate His holiness.

I listened to a number of Timothy Keller’s sermons on God’s holiness, and one in particular I will be quoting because I felt he explained it better than I ever could. However, I must remind myself again, that this isn’t about getting a perfect explanation about God’s holiness, but to share my perspective on the matter in hopes that it might help you find your own perspective of God’s holiness.

Not that God’s holiness is one thing for one person and another to someone else, but sometimes God is like a bookshelf. I can see one side of that bookshelf and from my perspective it looks like a flat board of wood. But you may see the other side of the box and from your perspective you can see the shelf full of books with all the resources God has to share. And by sharing our perspectives with each other we can see the multidimensionality (wow that’s a long word and I’m not sure where it came from) of God.

To me He may be a solid wall I can lean on, while to someone else He is full of resources to give. Sometimes I need those reminders that God has everything I need. Other times we need that reminder that we can lean on Jesus to hold us up.

God is Holy

Who is God? What makes Him holy?

God is holy in that He is different from creation. He is not part of creation. He was not created. He is the Creator. Therefore, when the rest of creation fell under the curse because of sin, God outside of creation was untouched by sin or the curse. He remained pure, holy, and righteous.

As a result, I don’t need to fear contaminating God. Someone said that, since God was untainted by sin, when things/people come into contact with God they don’t “dirty” His holiness, but rather they are transformed into His holiness.

In His holiness, God alone also is deserving of all praise. He alone is sacred and deserves all our awe and worship.

When and/or where do I see evidence of this characteristic in my life?

Lately God has been pressing into me to trust Him. Not only with my salvation, which is where trusting God came in at the turn of this year, but with everything. This has meant looking at different types of scenarios and how this is actually a matter of Trusting God.

However, I have trust issues as a result of lies and disappointments I have lived through. And I am guilty of minimizing God’s holiness while over impersonalizing God to be as simple as a human as J. I. Packer explains has become a common occurrence in his book Knowing God:

Therefore, I cannot appreciate God being personal, without recognizing His holiness. Neither can I praise properly His holiness without receiving His tender love.

I need both aspects of God. His holiness to humble me "when in pride I think I'm worthy"* and His gentle loving-kindness for when I know how guilty I am for then His "mercy bears my blame"*.

So as I learn to look at the world in a sense of wonder, I see a mighty God who created the whole universe of which I have been coming to understand how large even our planet earth is. But I also see the personal God who bent down to paint every single leaf, who purposefully placed each twig on every branch, who pays such purposeful attention to every single detail because He loves us and desires to walk with us through our lives.

How does this trait affect how God sees me?

Amazingly, God never cringes away from me.

For according to Psalm 139:16, God numbered each of my days. God planned and knew every single moment of each of my days. I used to think this meant all the good things. Just because God is good, doesn’t mean He doesn’t know about the bad things. God allows the bad, not because it pleases Him, but because He knows the end result will be better than the start.

So God knows every mistake I will make. God knows every time I will shut down in fear and say no. God knows every time I purposefully avoid Him. God knows every time I will doubt Him and question His method or reasoning. God knows every disbelief I hold against Him.

But none of these things makes Him love me any less. Instead He sees the work of progress I am. He knows exactly what to bring into my life and when in order to transform me into His holy image so I may be holy as He is holy.

Because of this perspective, what has God done?

I am not perfect. I am not holy. In a way, both of those words are synonymous in my mind for they are both unachievable for me and I grew up with the mindset of “I can’t, so why try?”

Yet God also knows I can’t. So instead of making me climb that mountain of holiness, God came down as Jesus to meet me where I am. Then He took off His robe of righteousness and threw it around my shoulders, calling me His beloved child. He breathed new life into my dead body. And now that the Holy Spirit dwells within me, I am holy.

I once heard the gospel proclaimed using a table and two chairs. The speaker explained how at the beginning, we sat at the table with God in perfection. But in the fall, our chair was knocked away. There was nothing we could do to draw our chair back up to the table. So Jesus brought His chair down to us. He sat with us. He died for us. Then He rose so we might rise also. Now we can look forward with confidence in the day our chair will be pulled up beside His table.

However, if that table is heaven, or rather the New Jerusalem, I believe someday God will actually bring the table to us:

How does this new understanding affect my response and how I live my life?

By being in relationship with Jesus, standing in His light, I can clearly see all my wrongs. Instead of hiding in shame, with His grace and forgiven, I can repent. This means acknowledging my wrongs, which hurts sometimes more than other times. Accepting God’s forgiveness and Jesus’ blood as enough. Then coming to understand the good that God has for me in place of that wrong.

I hear often that call to surrender and give up everything for Jesus. But while sometimes I hear that word transaction, I don’t think we talk enough about the truth of when we surrender everything to God, He is faithful and gives us exactly what we need.

My ex wouldn’t accept Jesus because He didn’t want to surrender his spirit. He knew he was lost, but he thought he had redeemed part of his soul and he didn’t want to lose it again. But when we give up our spirit to Jesus, surrendering ourselves to Him, He gives us the Holy Spirit. What an exchange! We lose our broken, sinful spirit in surrender to God and He gives us His Holy Spirit to dwell in our hearts.

Friend. I cannot help but stop and stand in awe of God’s goodness. At just how amazing and powerful He is, yet so kind and gentle. A few times this past month I just broke out singing the chorus to I Stand In Awe of You.

Is there something that makes you stop and consider just how awesome God is? Let that moment sink in and praise God for His holiness and thank Him for His tender mercies.

I am going to be backing off a little to once a month, unless something comes heavy upon my heart to share. I will see you on the second Thursday of December diving headfirst into how God is immutable (never-changing).

With love in Christ,

Rachel

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Read more about how I am learning to trust God on my newest blog post:

*Lyrics from "You've Always Been" by Unspoken

All Bible quotations are from the New International Version (NIV) unless otherwise noted.