Holy

Psalm 77:13, "God, your way is holy. What god is great like God?"


Holiness.

When you think of that word do you feel intimidated, fearful, disinterested, or maybe something else?

We don't seem to talk a lot about holiness, and about how God is holy. Yes, He's full of grace and we know He's holy. But what does that even mean?

Holy means pure, sacred, set apart, inspiring fear or awe.

But we seem to treat the word holy one of two ways. Either we don't talk about it since the subject can be intimidating, or we throw the word around casually.

God is holy. Yes, He's full of grace, but He still remains holy.

Psalm 24:3, "Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place?"


God is holy. What can we do? How can we approach Him?

God is perfect, pure, He has no flaw. How can we have a relationship with Him?

Romans 3:10, "As it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one."

We aren't good. We aren't righteous. No one is.

Romans 5:1 says, "Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."

Wait... back up a second. First it says no one is righteous, now it says we are? These verses aren't contradicting themselves. We on our own can never be righteous. It is through faith by grace in Christ that we are declared righteous.

When God, who is holy, looks at us He doesn't see our sin. Our sins have been covered by the blood of Jesus.

Galatians 3:27, "For those of you who were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ."

1 John 1:7, "If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin."


Now, before I move on, I want to emphasize on something first. Jesus died on a cross for our sins (Hebrews 9:22. 24-28) and on our own we cannot be saved. It is only through Jesus that we can come to the Father (John 14:6).

Romans 10:9-13, " If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, Everyone who believes on him will not be put to shame, since there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, because the same Lord of all richly blesses all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."


God is holy. Because He is holy we should revere Him as such. His name is holy (Psalm 30:4). Since His name is holy we shouldn't take His name in vain.

We shouldn't treat God too casually. Yes, last week I talked about abiding in Him. But while we do abide in Him (or should abide in Him) then we still need to remember He is holy and pure and perfect. He's the one and only God.

The picture at the top of this post is of the last part of the sunset I saw the other evening. The God who created that deserves our praise.

We are to honor God, praise Him, and stand in awe of Him. He's amazing. How can we not honor, praise, and be in awe of Him?


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Let's talk...

What comes to your mind when you think about holiness? What's your favorite verse about holiness? What's one of your favorite attributes of God? Any other thoughts on holiness?


Luke 1:73-75, "He has given us the privilege, since we have been rescued from the hand of our enemies, to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness in his presence all our days."