HOLY GOD FOR HOLEY MAN
(8-minute read)
How do we know if someone among us is an important person? Most of us quickly pick up cues from the other people around – their decorum, dressing, demeanor and the way they respond to the most elevated person in the room who carries substantial influence over the rest. For example, we may know very quickly if a celebrity or royalty is expected by looking at the visible tell-tale signs like an increased presence of security personnel and crowd control barricades set up to ensure safety for both the VIP and the adoring fans who are gathered.
How do we tell if God is present – when we are in church, when we are sharing a meal together, or when we are all alone? God is omnipresent, so it is not like He appears at whim here and there and we have to ‘catch’ Him when He shows up. Rather, it is about our ability to cultivate an awareness of His omnipresence in our day-to-day life. Does our behaviour signal His invisible Presence to others?
One important attribute of God is His holiness. King David often referred to God as the Holy One – in one way or another, depending on the translation (Psalm 22:3). The prophet Isaiah also spoke effusively about the holiness of God from dreams and visions (Isaiah 40:25-26). While we cannot ‘see’ God, we can get a sense of His holiness from their writings.
Whenever, wherever God is present, it is a Holy Presence because He is holy. This makes us conscious of two things:
1. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE ENCOUNTER GOD AS THE HOLY ONE?
Encountering God is not something that happens because we have sung some worship songs and so God should ‘appear’, or when a preacher enthuses ‘God is here!’ although worship and exhortations can help us focus on God’s presence wherever we are.
We can only encounter God and not see Him face to face. Isaiah recounted in Isaiah 6:1-2 an arresting encounter with God where no one could bear His Presence without protecting themselves from the sheer awe of being in His Presence.
“I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: with two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.”
In God’s Presence, we will be overwhelmed, firstly, by a great sense of awe that is simply indescribable. Although Isaiah said “I saw the Lord” – there was no way he could see God with his human eyes so what he ‘saw’ were signs of His presence – catching the train of His robe and watching the seraphim’s response to His majestic presence.
Exodus 3:6 described Moses’ first encounter with God, when he instinctively covered his face, “Then He said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.”
The Bible made it clear why we need to pay attention to God’s holiness in 2 Corinthians 5:10, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.”
To “appear” is to be exposed, be fully known where we are no longer in control of how much we want to reveal of ourselves to God and let Him know us. Hence, it makes spiritual sense for us to cultivate an awareness of God’s holy presence and habitually make ourselves transparent to Him.
Secondly, the overwhelming presence of God also imbues us with a deep sense of the fear of God that can be described as a consciousness of His holiness and our response to Him. In fact, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” (Proverbs 9:10).
When believers think that faithfully attending religious gatherings automatically sensitizes them to God’s presence, their lives will show a lack of intimacy with Him and they will only ever refer to Him as a third person from the Bible or from pulpit teaching. Their lives will also show a marked chasm between what they know about God and what they experience with God.
Thirdly, when we are overwhelmed by God’s presence, it engenders in us a very mindful state of Preparation. Like a bride who knows the importance of a dress fitting, who takes pain to memorize her vows, and who rises early to be ready for all the preparations to look radiant on her wedding day!
So to be ready to engage a Holy God means that to be prepared for it to happen anytime anywhere. In the presence of God, everything else becomes obscure. The frustration with dysfunctional leadership, the exasperation of picking up other people’s slack, the heated argument yesterday, the feeling of being invisible to others, all fade away in the presence of God. But if we are constantly preoccupied, rushed, and unprepared for Him, we will let countless concerns rob us of precious moments of engaging God.
2. WHAT SHOULD OUR RESPONSE BE TO A HOLY GOD?
CONFESSION
Drawing from Isaiah 6:5, the prophet Isaiah saw himself exposed in the presence of a holy God. “Woe to me! I am ruined!” Paraphrased as I’m a wreck… totally messed up! It is a humbling experience to come before a Holy God. It keeps us honest about how holey our hearts really are - punctured by sins and polluted by the faults, flaws and fears we hold onto to that constrict fullness of life and effective ministry.
In God’s Presence, who we really are is laid bare before an omniscient God who knows everything. To be ‘exposed’ is a discipline that keeps our spiritual health in check.
REPENTANCE
Isaiah continued the recount of his encounter with God in Isaiah 6:6-7, “Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, … and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
This offers us a beautiful vision of God’s atonement (His making amends) for you and me when we repent. Repentance is an act of turning away from a behaviour, attitude or conduct that runs counter to God’s best for us. When we repent, we allow God to make the necessary revisions in our lives and restore His intended order. What follows is that when God looks at us now, He no longer sees us as sinful and deserving of wrath, but He sees us through the righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to us.
READINESS
When God restores us through His forgiveness of our sins, He never intends for us to huddle on safe shores, sharing meals, singing love songs to Him, and rallying others to join us. After the Lord’s resurrection, He wasted no time to help Peter face the hardest relational conflict in his life when He asked His disciple, ‘Do you love Me?’ (John 21:15). It was an uneasy confrontation but good friends have honest conversations. And until Peter resolved in his heart that his relationship with Jesus was more important to him than self-preservation, his life and ministry would be limited by his aversion to risks.
God Himself demonstrated His redemptive love for us by sending His Son Jesus to die on the Cross for our sins. We are saved not so that we would secure a one-way passage to heaven but so we would bring heaven to those who are perishing in darkness. When Jesus preached, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near”, the Lord was declaring that heaven had come to humanity (Matthew 4:17).
In quick succession, Isaiah’s vision continued in Isaiah 6:8, “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I. Send me!’” There was both intensity and urgency. Clear as crystal, Isaiah ‘saw’ that he was sanctified for God’s immediate mission.
We must never be contented to be stuck at confession and repentance and never ready to respond to God’s mission.
Being holy is not about sinning less (or being sin-less). It is not about avoiding attention to ourselves, disrupting the status quo, or breaking rules and norms. Rule-based relationships (including within the body of Christ) will always encourage people to do the minimum, play it safe and keep scores – all that impedes relational intimacy. We are not called to be compliant rule-keepers but to be faithful to a Holy God. Nothing is more important in the body of Christ than God.
As a community, let encountering God be a regular experience in our individual lives. God gave us a compelling reason for it through Moses, ‘“Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: ‘Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.” (Leviticus 19:1-2).
This is a summary and reflection based on a virtual BeInReach Session held on 2 March 2024.
