What is Holiness?

 

The other day, as I was reading the Bible I came across these verses.

Isaiah 52:10 “The Lord has made bare His holy arm. In the eyes of all the nations; And all the ends of the earth shall see The salvation of our God.”

Psalms 3:4 “I cried to the Lord with my voice, And He heard me from His holy hill.”

Psalms 5:7 “But as for me, I will come into Your House in the multitude of Your mercy; In fear of You I will worship toward Your holy temple.”

Revelation 4:8 “The four living creatures, each having six wings were full of eyes around and within. And they do not rest day or night saying: “HOLY HOLY HOLY Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come!”

That caught my attention. Here was the word HOLY repeated over and over again. I was suddenly reminded of how all over the Bible it says in many, many places that Our God is Holy. So, I looked up the actual word Holy to understand its meaning better. The Merriam Webster Dictionary meaning is exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness. The other word meanings are sacred, pure, pious, devoted fully.

The Hebrew word for ‘Holy’ means “separate or set apart”. This is helpful as when talking about God’s holiness, we talk about His absolute purity. He is unstained by sin and evil. He is perfect in every way, and perfectly good all the time. – Bible Dictionary.

According to Mother Teresa “ Holiness consists of doing the will of God with a smile.”

Therese of Lisieux “Holiness consists simply in doing God’s will , and being just what God wants us to be.”

Jerry Bridges writes in his book  ‘ The pursuit of holiness’: “Holiness is God’s crown. Imagine for a moment that God possessed omnipotence (infinite power), omniscience (perfect and complete knowledge), and omnipresence (everywhere present), but without perfect holiness. Such a one could no longer be described as God. Holiness is the perfection of all His other attributes: His power is holy power; His mercy is holy mercy; His wisdom is holy wisdom. It is His holiness more than any other attribute that makes Him worthy of our praise.”

Holiness in simple terms is to do what pleases God and to shun all forms of evil knowing that it would hurt the heart of Our Father God who gave us His absolute best to save us from eternal judgment. The HOLY Lord didn’t spare His Only Begotten Son Jesus for us and actually turned His face away from the Cross for a moment when the Lord Jesus bore all our sins on Himself. That was the Ultimate Rejection and Jesus cried out in agony “My God , My God why have You forsaken Me?” (Mathew 27:46) The Holy Father loved us so much that it pleased Him to bruise Jesus – Isaiah 53:10 God loved us so much that He just didn’t save us but it delighted Him to save us. Nothing magnifies the Glory of God like the Son of God embracing the Cross. A HOLY GOD who LOVES like no other! Hallelujah …we serve such a wonderful God.

Let us see some more verses about Holiness in the Bible:

1)    Who may ascend His holy hill? Psalms 24:3-6  The one who has clean hands and  a pure heart. Who has not lifted up his soul to any idol. Nor sworn deceitfully. Such a person will receive the blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of His salvation. This means that we too have a part to play and the Lord Jesus gives us His righteousness as a robe at salvation.(Isa 61:10,11)

2)    The Lord commands us to Be Holy for He is Holy (Lev 19:2, 1 Peter 1:16)

3)    In 2 Corin 6:17,18-7:1 we read God calling us to  : “ Come out from among them and be separate says the Lord. Do no touch what is unclean, And I will receive you. I will be a Father to you and you shall be My sons and daughters….. Therefore having these promises, beloved , let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and the spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”

4)     Jesus is now seated at the right hand of God making intercession for us. We read in Heb 7:26-28 that we have a High Priest fitting for us, holy , harmless, undefiled separate from sinners and has become higher than the heavens.The Son has been perfected Forever. He is the ONLY truly HOLY and RIGHTEOUS ONE.

5)    It is the Lord who purifies us ( Isa 6:3-5) In the Presence of the Holy God Isaiah becomes so aware of His uncleanness and He cries out to the Lord ,"Woe I am undone for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips." That’s when the seraphim is sent by God to touch his mouth with the live coal from the altar and his iniquity is taken away and sin purged.

In the New Testament, we see in 2 Corin 5:21 “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Jesus became the Holy Lamb of God for us and was sacrificed once and for all so that by His blood we can go boldly to His throne of Grace and Mercy and plead forgiveness of sin.

It is the Holy Spirit that guides us into all Holiness. The same Power that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in us today. Rom 8:11

Let us thus rededicate ourselves to the Lord asking for His Mercy and Grace ‘to be holy as our Father is holy.’ Mathew 5:48 Charles Spurgeon “The saints shall preserve in holiness because God preserves in Grace.”

Sharing some beautiful songs on the Holiness of God: Hope you enjoy them.

GOD IS GREAT - HILLSONG WORSHIP

HOLY SPIRIT THOU ART WELCOME IN THIS PLACE- BENNY HINN

 

YOU ARE HOLY - JOSHUA AARON

NEE ENNUM PARISHUDHAN - CHERRY GEORGE CHERIAN

HOLY FOREVER - CHRIS TOMLIN

HOLY , HOLY, HOLY PAUL WILBUR

HOLY IS OUR GOD- ROBIN MARK

YOU ARE HOLY- MICHAEL W SMITH

HOLY IS THE LORD -CHRIS TOMLIN

HOLY LAMB OF GOD - DON MOEN

Have a wonderful week,

Stay blessed!

Sparky laurie

 

HOW TO BELIEVE ?

Hi friends,

Hope you are doing fine. Today I’d like to share about the kind of belief we shouldn’t have and the kind of belief that we should have. This post is based on 2 Kings chapter 7. Let me divide this story into 2 portions for easier understanding.

The Officer’s Unbelief in spite of the Promise-

The first portion is in 2 Kings 7 verses1&2 and 17-20. The story starts by prophet Elisha bringing the Word of the Lord to the King and nation of Israel. Though it is a time of famine, and the king blames God for the calamity, Elisha brings them a good word which is God’s promise that within 24 hours there would be a favorable reversal of the economic situation in Samaria. He says that there would be such abundance in place of scarcity that the food prices would drop drastically in the city. On hearing this , the king’s officer full of unbelief makes a comment “even if the Lord would make windows in heaven …could this thing be?” In response, God pronounces a harsh judgment upon the doubting officer through Elisha saying that “the Word of God would be fulfilled, and he would see it, but he would not benefit from it.” Later, we see the king appointing this particular officer to have the charge of the gate and hungry people on knowing that there was abundance of food rush at the gate where the officer is trampled to death. Just like the man of God says, he sees the food but is unable to eat of it.”

How grave is the sin of unbelief in the eyes of our God! 

Unbelief is a deliberate refusal to have faith and accept the goodness of God. It is different from doubt. Henry Drummond explains it beautifully: “Christ never failed to distinguish between doubt and unbelief. Doubt can’t believe. Unbelief won’t believe. Doubt is honesty. Unbelief is obstinacy. Doubt is looking for light. Unbelief is content with darkness.”

In verses 5-7 we see how we see a fully stocked Syrian camp is suddenly empty of men.

Israel was powerless against the besieging army, but God wasn’t powerless. We see how God attacked the Syrians simply by causing them to hear the noises of an attacking army. Imagining the worst, they flee for their lives leaving behind everything as it is.

The Belief of the Four Lepers despite their hopeless condition-  (verses 3-20)

The 4 lepers were sitting near the gate as they were untouchables and not welcome in the city. They wanted to surrender to the Syrian army as they knew that if they remained at the gate, they would die of hunger anyway. They had nothing to lose in other words. Imagine their surprise when they find the camp deserted but full of food and other supplies. They ate and drank to their heart’s content and carried gold, silver, and clothing from tent to tent and hid them.(vs 8) For some time, the lepers enjoyed the blessings, but they soon realize their responsibility to share it with others. They knew it would be sin to be silent and selfishly enjoy the blessings and so they inform the gatekeepers. Since they were not allowed inside the city, they share the good news with those who they can.

A lesson we can learn from the lepers is that we too who have known Salvation and experienced the love and blessing of the Father have a responsibility to share the Good News of Jesus Christ faithfully with those we can. Another thing is that the lepers enjoyed the feast first before they told others about it. We too can share the Gospel with others only when we ourselves are truly enjoying it.

We may be having our own problems, we may be anxious about many things or broken in many areas of our life like the lepers, we may be misunderstood, unwanted, rejected or even social outcasts, but we must believe that the Lord can take all of us and use us for His Glory. He can give us what we need – Healing, Deliverance, Answers, Restoration and when He puts people in need into our lives just like those grateful lepers, we too have a responsibility to share Jesus as Savior with those who don’t know Him in their lives.

We may often think that it would be the officer who had heard the Promise who would be used by God, but God used the unworthy, unlikely lepers to do His work. Similarly, often God will choose not the great or influential but the ordinary and the foolish things of this world to do His work. That’s how we know it is Him and not us. Let us listen to the words of this song MY STORY  YOUR GLORY by Matthew West which summarizes this aptly.

https://youtu.be/_KZJznKgHqU?si=pqWNDwZMO3ZUPx4S

Have a blessed week,

Sparky laurie