Were any of you as impressed as I was, with the Holiness of God, as we went through ‘Counting Pentecost’? Especially in the Old Testament? As we were reading and studying to put the count together everyday, paralleling the old with the new testaments, in as much of an order as we could, it struck me how many times God says, I am Holy therefore my people will be holy. I wonder if we haven’t lost that awareness of God’s holiness, in our desire to be a people pleasing church. Or is that we’re like the church at Ephesus and have left our first love?
So, what has changed? Why did the children of Israel tremble when God came down? But at Pentecost the disciples were waiting—eagerly for the Holy Spirit to come upon them? You get the sense that they were like Esther, they were willing to risk everything—death—to be consumed in the fiery breath of God—if I perish, I perish! Like Moses, they yearned to see the face of their God!
Maybe it’s just a matter of degrees. We have the Old and New Testaments to know the love and forgiveness the Father has for us—exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think…He started by choosing a people, so they could be an example.
Throughout the whole Bible, God is pursuing us, wooing us to Himself. He begins in the Old Testament, showing us who He is, the One true God. The One who–out of nothing–created everything. A Holy God. And because He is holy when He calls us, that call, demands that we be holy ourselves in all our behavior.
See now that I, I am He, And there is no god besides Me; It is I who put to death and give life. I have wounded and it is I who heal, And there is no one who can deliver from My hand. Deu 32:39
God the LORD, Who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who spread out the earth and its offspring, Who gives breath to the people on it And spirit to those who walk in it, Isa 42:5
Then Moses said to Aaron, “It is what the LORD spoke, saying, ‘By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy, And before all the people I will be honored.'” So Aaron, therefore, kept silent. Lev 10:3
In the Gospels we see just how much the Father wants to be close to us. He provides the way for us to be holy. He sacrifices all that is dearest to Him, His Son, the very essence of who he is–His very Holiness. “…who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Php 2:6-8 Jesus came and lived with us, became Sin itself, and offered up His life to the Father, the only sacrifice worthy, once and for all, to cleanse us, so that when God sees us, He sees only the righteousness of Jesus. At repentance, (we think differently; change our mind, regretting our sins and changing our conduct) we are to be As obedient children, not being conformed to the former lusts which were ours in our ignorance, but like the Holy One who called us, being holy ourselves also in all our behavior; because it is written, “YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY.” 1Pe 1:15-16
Photo by Leilani
Without Holiness–No man will see the Lord. Heb 12:14
What are your thoughts?
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