“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies!
The whole earth is filled with his glory!” -Isaiah 6:1-3
In my last blog, God is who He is, I finished with the question, “Who is God to you?” I explained our character and choices will reflect who we believe God is. If you believe God answers prayers, you will wait expectantly for God to answer your prayers. If you believe God is a Father who provides for your basic needs, you will express thanksgiving when they’re met. If you believe God will catch you or teach you when you take leaps of faith, you will take leaps of faith. No psychologist, self-help guru, or pastor disagree: Our beliefs are powerful.
If you believe God is Holy, you will have reverence for Him.
Let’s consider what it means to say, God is holy. In Habakkuk 1:13, God is said to be so pure he does not tolerate evil. Holiness means “to separate” or “to cut off” anything that is sinful, impure, or evil. Holiness is an inability to be corrupted and a state of being perfectly good. Because God is perfectly good, our sin separates us from Him. This explains why we can’t stroll down the street and sit in His office like Adam and Eve had the pleasure of doing. Although we are created in His image, none of us fully live up to the standard He sets. God alone is perfectly good, and He is far above and beyond us.
It sounds terrible to believe we are separated from God. His perfection might even evoke fear in your heart. It does mine at times. An unbeliever might think, “How inadequate Christian’s must feel,” but how much worse would it be if God were fallible like us?
It’s exciting to know that we can count on God to do the right thing.
“You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil; with you the wicked cannot dwell.” -Psalm 5:4
Now, that I’ve explained holiness is an absence of anything evil, we can understand that everything associated with God is holy. God described the earth and His creation including Adam and Even as “very good.” It wasn’t until after the fall the world became filled with evil. When Christ died, His mission was to bring us back into a relationship with God. Through Christ Christians claim association to God. Christ didn’t die to only save us from eternal condemnation. He died to save us from our sin. He died so that we would become holy. What is the key to living a holy life?
Through faith in Christ we can draw closer to God and become less associated with sin.
Jesus’s death did not grant us the permission to sin. It was the solution to free believers from sin. Striving to grow in holiness is essential to the Christian life.
In John 8, it is evident that Jesus does not condemn us, but he said, “Go and sin no more.” In Hebrews Paul said, “without holiness no one will see the Lord.” Jesus’s death and resurrection laid the foundation for us to attain His command.
My prayer is that as we learn what it means to be virtuous, we grow in deeper reverence for God and allow Him to strengthen our beliefs, re-define our values, and bring clarity to what it means to be holy.
“For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.” -1 Thessalonians 4:7
What does holiness look like to you?
