While I would guess that most people are captivated by God's love, I would have to say that more and more I am captivated by God's holiness. We hear "God is love" all the time, in church and out of church, from believers and non-believers alike. Even people who only ascribe to some vague sort of spirituality have a sense that whatever-it-is they believe in must be based in love, and feel love and express love.
And of course God IS actually love. We find that exact phrase in the Bible.
1 John 4:8
"He who does not love does not know God, for God is love."
You can find the phrase "God is love" again in 1 John 4:16.
The problem, I think, is that we have so many mixed up, and flat out wrong, ideas about what love actually is. And we carry that confusion into the mix when we try to comprehend that God is love. Not only that, but real, true love seems to be in short supply in our modern culture, and that certainly doesn't help us out when we try to discern what God being love actually means.
I prefer to be overwhelmed by God's holiness. Now that is something special. I find all sorts of cheap imitations of love on television, in books, and in observing how people around me interact with one another. But not a single one of those things profess to be holy. Holiness is reserved for Yahweh. And it gets my attention.
I'm not trying to take away from the fact that God is love, because like I just said, He certainly is. But consider what the angels cry out to God when they are worshiping Him in His presence.
Isaiah 6:3
"And one cried to another and said:
Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;
The whole earth is full of His glory!"
And again in 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!"
The angels don't worship God by crying out that God is love, love, love. Nope. It is God's holiness that is proclaimed before Him in His throne room.
The twist to all of this is that the more I think about God's holiness, the more dumbfounded I am that this holy God could also choose to love me. The bigger God's holiness gets, the more amazing His love gets. I'm not sure that it works the other way around. Perhaps it has for you?
One of my favorite hymns is actually "Holy, Holy, Holy!" by Reginald Heber. You might be familiar with it, its an old standard in most traditional worship services. I've memorized all of the verses because I have a children's CD with that song on it that I listen to in my car. But it is the third verse that stands out to me.
"Holy, holy, holy! Though the darkness hide thee,
though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see,
only thou art holy; there is none beside thee
perfect in power, in love, and purity."
Something about that just gets me every time. I'm getting misty and stopped up just thinking about it now.
God is holy. And I'm going to find a tissue.
GPS…FINALLY!!!!
9 years ago
4 comments:
God's holy love--how great is that?? A perfect, blemish-free love toward us. Wow. :)
Could you email me the name of that children's CD?
Enjoyed the post, great thoughts.
Just in case any of the rest of you are interested in the children's CD, it came with a book titled "Hymns for a Kids Heart." The book is co-authored by Joni Erickson Tada (I don't remember the name of the other author off the top of my head, and as usual I'm too lazy to go look.)
The book contains stories about each of the author of each hymn, and describes the time that he lived and his inspiration for writing the hymn. It also has devotionals. I think its a great book and a great CD. I would listen to the music even if I didn't have kids!
Two weeks ago, I said to my Not-So-Classic, "I really feel like the Lord wants me to learn more about hymns and about the men and women who wrote them." The very next day, I googled up a top ten hymns list and just scrolled down. I was drawn to "Holy, Holy , Holy." I googled about it and proceeded to learn abotu the man and the hymn.
The next day, the Lord prompted me to begin to learn about the prophets. Every now and then, I read The Message version. That day I read the small essay the author wrote that was right before the prophets. Know what the last words of his essay were? "Holy, holy, holy."
I began to read Isaiah and realized that the major theme of the book is God's holiness.
Needless to say, I've been singing this hymn for the last two weeks and had to chuckle right out loud when I read this post.
I just love the Holy Spirit. I really do.
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