Holy Holy Holy

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.

Got Guilt?

Got guilt? Oh, of course you do. And if you haven't done anything lately to feel guilty over, I bet it doesn't take much effort to think back to some occasion that brings that unwelcome sinking sensation in your gut.

So what are we supposed to do with guilt?

To start with, I think we should recognize that not all guilt is a bad. Sometimes we are so eager to get rid of the unpleasantness of guilt that we fail to deal with the problem that is causing us to feel guilty to begin with. This is a bad thing. If you feel guilty, ask yourself why. It might be that you actually need to repent of something. Often, we are reluctant to repent, and guilt is the byproduct.

But there are plenty of times when guilt is just self-condemnation.

The Bible teaches clearly, and in so many places, that those who are found in Christ have absolutely no reason to feel condemned. This truth is so startling and revolutionary that I think we sometimes gloss over the profoundness of it. I mean, come on, God can't really mean that we are totally washed clean and forgiven can He? Surely there is going to be some cosmic extraction of penance or sudden onslaught of punishment, isn't there?

No. There isn't.

It has already been taken care of. Yes, all of it. Yes, really, even THAT thing.

When Jesus came to this world in the flesh, and died on the cross, every bit of it was paid for. The big word for this is "propitiation" and the Greek for propitiation is hilasmos. The literal definition of hilasmos is atonement. Jesus atoned for our sins. He made them right by paying the price for them.

1 John 4:10

"In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins."

We, who have faith in Christ, are declared pure, because Christ has made us pure.

1Jn 3:3

"And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure."

What right in the world do I have to accuse and condemn what God has declared pure, including myself?

Romans 8:33,34

"Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.
Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us."

Have you ever thought about it that way? When you point a finger of self-condemnation at yourself, you are disagreeing with God. You are claiming that what Jesus did on the cross wasn't really sufficient for you and your sins. Do you really think you are that significant? Do I?

Listen, I need to be reminded of this just as much as anyone. Lately, in particular, I feel like Satan has been making quite an effort to remind me of who I used to be.

But God, through Scripture, tells me who I am in Christ. And that is the opinion that not only counts, but is perfect truth.

Rom 8:1

"There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit."

The Ark of the Covenant

With the new Indiana Jones movie hitting theaters, I started thinking about that older Indiana Jones movie. You know, the one where he races against the evil Nazis to find the ark of the covenant. That scene, when the ark is opened by the bad guys, and their faces melt, is forever imprinted on the memory of my childhood. Never had a cooler or creepier movie been made as far as my preteen self was concerned.

And then last weekend, my husband and I watched a rather fascinating documentary about a man who set out to track down and discover the real ark of the covenant. He didn't find it. He did find something sort of like it that was about 800 years old (maybe 600, but pretty old nonetheless) which was located in modern day Zimbabwe.

A few days later, I came upon this verse in Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 3:16

"Then it shall come to pass, when you are multiplied and increased in the land in those days," says the LORD, "that they will say no more, "The ark of the covenant of the LORD". It shall not come to mind, nor shall they remember it, not shall they visit it, nor shall it be made anymore."

Hmm. That last part, "nor shall it be made anymore" intrigued me. Does that mean that the original ark is now "unmade" and therefore doesn't even exist? I sure could have saved Mr. Documentary a whole heap of trouble if that were the case.

A couple of different commentaries seemed to think that that last phrase meant the ark wouldn't be repaired anymore. It would just sort of be forgotten and allowed to deteriorate. It is fairly certain that the ark was carried away during the Babylonian captivity, and we know that it was not restored when the temple was rebuilt. So I suppose that the physical form of the ark could possibly exist somewhere amidst undiscovered Babylonian or Assyrian treasures. But, I kind of doubt it. I think the thing has ceased to exist.

More importantly, though, is the reason that the original ark, and its current location, are completely irrelevant to us, except as a historical curiosity.

The ark served as God's dwelling place on earth. It was his figurative throne, and all of Judaism, with its intricate ceremonies and symbolism, revolved around it. The ark was so holy that touching it brought certain death. Only after going through excessive ritual cleansing could a priest approach the ark, and then only once a year, and then bearing blood to atone for Israel's sins.

Once, when the Philistines captured the ark,their cities were afflicted with tumors and plagues of rats. Nice. The Philistines returned it pretty quickly. Upon its return, the Israelites treated it casually, and they were struck dead. You can read the full story in 1 Sam 4-6. In other words, the ark was holy, precious and terrifying, all at the same time.

OK, but why is the ark now irrelevant? Quite simply, its because God doesn't dwell in it anymore. He has abandoned the ark for, what I think, is a much better throne: the hearts of His children.

1 Corinthians 3:16

"Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?"

One more thing. The ark held several items: a golden pot with some manna in it, Aaron's rod that budded (Aaron was a priest), and the stone tablets on which were written the ten commandments (the law).

Well, guess what else God has put in our hearts besides His Spirit?

Jeremiah 31:33

"But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people."

Did you see that? The law, which was once written on tablets of stone and kept in a box, is now carved into our very hearts and minds. Amazing.

I suppose that I could stretch this post out and explain that we now receive manna directly from God through His daily provisions for us, and we are all priests, just as the budding rod of Aaron indicated. But, that would make this post waaaay too long. Maybe you could just take my word for it?

So, next time a friend of yours starts to muse about "whatever happened to the ark of the covenant," you can tell them exactly why it doesn't matter anymore. (What? You and your friends don't talk about stuff like that? What kind of friends do you have, anyway?)

Do you think I should write Mr. Documentary a letter and fill him in too?

Unchangeable

There is a really big word that means God does not change. Immutable. That is the fancy word. But if you don't get into theology and its sometimes extremely complicated terminology, then you can just understand the definition of the word: God has never, and will never change. He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.

That means that the same God who walked with Adam in the Garden, told Noah to build the Ark, revealed Himself to Abraham and appeared to Moses in the burning bush is the exact same God that you and I pray to today. Talk about an incomprehensible idea. I have a hard enough time wrapping my mind around the fact that God was never created, He has always existed outside of of time and history (2 Pet 3:8.) Then, He never changes either?

I know that it is tempting to think that God somehow "changed" between the Old Testament and the New Testament, but He didn't.

Here are a few verses to consider.

Psalm 90:2

"Before the mountains were brought forth,
Or ever You had formed the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting You are God."

From that we see that God existed apart from, and before, the earth was created. He has existed and will exist, from everlasting to everlasting.

In Hebrews 6:17, God's counsel is described as immutable. There is our big word again. The exact phrase is "the immutability of His counsel." All that means in easy language, is that God's purposes are unchangeable. The author of Hebrews is using the phrase to describe why God swore by Himself when He made His covenant with Abraham.

God wanted us to know that His covenant with Abraham was so infallible that He gave it a double security. Not only did God say it, and we know that God only speaks truth (John 17:17). But He also swore by Himself. Humans swear by a higher power when they make an oath. For God, there is no higher power, so instead He swore by His unchangeable and eternal nature.

So if God exists in eternity, and His purposes are never changed, then why would it follow that He or any part of Him would ever change? It just doesn't.

What did change was God's revelation to mankind. When Jesus came and sacrificed Himself on the cross for our sins, a new covenant was ushered in. Just as God divided the sacrificial animals and walked through their blood when He entered into covenant with Abraham (Gen 15:9-17), Jesus blood marked the onset of a new covenant for God's people.

Here is where it gets complicated, and way beyond the scope of this post to fully explore. The old covenant, the covenant of works, did not become void. What that means is that perfect righteousness, perfect adherence to the law, did not become unnecessary. All of those things are still required in order for us to receive the privilege of not only being reconciled to God, but being able to call on Him as our loving Abba Father.

Instead of becoming void, the old covenant of works became completed. Jesus fulfilled the old covenant by perfectly adhering to all of its (impossible for us) requirements. And then, oh! then! he credited His perfect work to us by covering us with His holy and righteous blood. It will never get better than that.

And so now, even though God has never changed, and He is the exact same God whose holiness demanded that he call up the Babylonian armies to utterly destroy His beloved Jerusalem, we are able to curl up on His lap as cherished children without any fear. We are able to take the most minute concern to Him in prayer, and He will hear us without fail. Because when He looks at us, we are perfect and holy. We are just as righteous in His sight as Jesus is.

No, God has never changed. And neither has His overwhelming love for us.

Jeremiah 31:3

"Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love;
Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you."

Purchase Power

I have pretty much been crying on and off all day now. I'm going to get a headache in a little while that will probably ruin the rest of the afternoon. I'm not too excited about the headache, but the crying, well, its been the good kind, the kind that wells up inside you and refuses to be ignored. The crying that happens when you realize something so wonderful that it overwhelms you; and the only thing you can think to do in response is cry like an idiot.

It all started this morning when I read Isaiah 49.

Isaiah 49: 5-6

"'And now the LORD says,
Who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant,
To bring Jacob back to Him,
So that Israel is gathered to Him
(For I shall be glorious in the eyes of the LORD,
And My God shall be my strength),
Indeed He says,
'It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant
To raise up the tribes of Jacob,
And to restore the preserved ones of Israel;
I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles,
That you should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.'"

Notice all of the capital letters in those verses. The Servant, the I, the Me, the one speaking here is Jesus.

I saw something in verse 6 that I'd never thought about before. The purchase price that Jesus Christ paid on the cross was too valuable to only redeem the nation of Israel. This would have been a revolutionary idea in Isaiah's day. The Jews understood that they were God's special and chosen people, set apart, marked off from the rest of humanity. They were right to think that way. God had declared it to them numerous times, and had given them specific laws to live by as a way of demonstrating their separateness to the rest of the world. But here, we see the LORD telling Jesus (part of Himself) that only redeeming Israel is too little to get in return for what He would do. So the Gentiles must be brought to the light as well.

Now, we know that God does not change His plan halfway through the game. Everything that has ever happened and will ever happen has been planned from the beginning. So it's not like God changed His mind and decided to throw the Gentiles in the deal at the last minute. It was part of His plan to include us all along. But I've just never seen it in this light before.

Which serves to illustrate an important point that seems to get overlooked a lot. This idea does an interesting thing. You see, this equation was never about our value, it was about God's value. It turns our perspective from ourselves back to God, which is where it should be anyway. So much of what we are exposed to encourages us to appreciate how much God loves us personally. That is important, don't get me wrong here, it is certainly part of the whole. But the part that gets overlooked, I'm afraid, is that God is about more than just loving us, He is always after His own glory. In everything.

This may be a subtle point, but I think its valid. Christ's worth is so infinitely valuable that we cannot even comprehend it. But one way God has tried to point us toward understanding it is by showing how much needed to be bought in order for the sacrifice of His son to be made. The Jews just weren't enough to make the trade worthwhile. Christ was too valuable. More had to be acquired for such a precious price to be given.

AND, not only does this high cost help us to understand Christ's worth, it brings Him glory as well. When we understand who God is and what He is, we glorify Him. Bringing glory to God simply means that we reflect His worth back to Him. The better we understand God, the more we can glorify God.

Boy I hope I expressed that in a way that makes sense. If I sound like I'm talking in circles, just let me know. I'll try to clarify.

There is so much more I want to share with you about Isaiah 49. These two verses aren't even the ones that made me cry. I'll try to get up another post this weekend. Maybe tomorrow I'll have settled down enough to express my thoughts clearly.

Good Friday

I literally do not have the time to write a post this morning. But I read something during my quiet time today that is too good to keep to myself. So, forgive me if I misspell a word or use incorrect grammar. I've just got to share this!

Today Christians worldwide celebrate or observe Good Friday, the day that Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross and took upon Himself the just wrath of God. By taking the wrath and punishment that WE deserve, He provided the only way that any of us could ever come before the Most Holy and Most High God, and not just come before Him, but dwell with Him in peace for eternity.

Before Jesus was betrayed by Judas, and taken to the cross to die, He observed the Passover meal with all of the disciples.

That is what I read this morning that is so cool! My reading was Psalm 113. I always read the footnotes in my Bible before I delve into each Psalm, because they hold a wealth of knowledge that I am woefully ignorant of. Here is the footnote that I read this morning.

"Psalm 113-118 were sung during the Passover, so it is likely that Jesus and His disciples sang them during their last evening together."

How amazing to have come to the songs that Jesus likely would have sung the night before He was to endure the cross. Consider these verses from Psalm 113, verses 5-9.

"Who is like the LORD our God,
Who dwells on high,
Who humbles Himself to behold
The things that are in the heavens and in the earth?

He raises the poor out of the dust,
And lifts the needy out of the ash heap,
That He may seat him with princes--
With the princes of His people.
He grants the barren woman a home,
Like a joyful mother of children."

Two things I want to point out. First, we know that Jesus was not just a man, but was also God Himself, one part of the Trinity. Did you see that God, who dwells on high, is even practicing condescension to behold the heavens and the earth? That is how high and how holy God is. Even to consider the heavens and the earth are an act of humbling for God. Now contrast that with how amazing it is that Jesus, God Himself, would come and be born on earth, would walk around and experience all that we experience, hunger, cold, weariness, poverty, etc...

Whew! How can we ever accuse God of not loving us?

Second, it is almost more than I can wrap my mind around to imagine what Jesus must have been thinking as He sung the words describing the poor, the needy and the barren. Do you realize that He was singing about us? We WERE the poor, the needy and the barren. And by the work accomplished on the cross we were raised and lifted above our natural condition. We were able to become joyful mothers, who had been barren women.

And of course, it is so like our loving and gracious God, that it gets even better. He doesn't just lift us out of the dust and ash heap. No, He goes that extra step further. He seats us with princes. We go from sitting in the dirt to being seated with royalty, to eating at the table of the princes of His people. (I don't have time to look up the verse right now, but maybe I will add it to this post later. There is a verse that describes us as not just being with Christ in eternity, but of reigning with Him as brothers, or more specifically, as joint heirs. So in essence, we become the princes of His people!)

**Here is the verse:

Romans 8:16-17

"The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs--heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together."

So today, as you consider the suffering that Christ endured on the cross, in order to receive us as His people, also think about the humanity of Jesus, who sang the words of Psalm 113, knowing full well the trial that was immediately before Him. But because of His overwhelming love for us, He faced it willingly, so that we could be lifted and raised.

Hebrews 12:2

"looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."


One more thing. Today is the one year anniversary of an amazing lesson that God taught me about prayer. If you are new to this blog, I encourage you to read it. It's a bit long, but I hope you will think it is worth it. Just click here.

The law of the LORD is perfect

Psalm 19:7-11

"The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul;
The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple;
The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart;
The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes;
The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever;
The judgments of the LORD are true and righteous all together.
More to be desired are they than gold,
Yea, than much fine gold;
Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb,
Moreover by them your servant is warned,
And in keeping them there is great reward."


I went to a very interesting MOPS meeting yesterday. For those of you who might not be familiar with MOPS, it stands for Mother's Of Preschoolers, and it is a quasi-Christian organization that seeks to reach out to, well, mothers of preschool aged children. I say quasi-Christian, because it can be either extremely Christ focused, or extremely world focused, depending on who is attending and what the women in leadership set as priorities. I attend MOPS mainly to encourage other Christian moms, to be encouraged myself by other Christian moms, and because there are plenty of non-Christian moms who come and I love the opportunity to spend time around them in a setting that encourages sharing of truth.

Yesterday was one of the best meetings we have had all year. A pastor's wife spoke to our group about pulling back from the "muchness" of life and focusing on our soul's relationship to God. It lead to some GREAT discussion in the small groups that we split into after she spoke. In my group, we spent some time talking about the "dos" and don'ts" that often seem to be the whole of the Christian faith to those who are outside of it. And sadly, they often seem to be the whole of the Christian faith to those who actually are believers.

Let me try to say this as clearly as I can. The law of the LORD is perfect. God means it when He commands us to live a certain way. He was not kidding or making gentle suggestions when He revealed Himself to mankind through the law, the testimony, the statutes, the commandments, and the judgments that He inspired Holy men to write as Holy Scripture.

BUT--if you stop there, if you make the law your entire Christian experience, you are being robbed of the real joy of knowing and loving God. The law has several very important jobs. One thing it does it point out our sinfulness; when we see the perfection that God has commanded us to, and then we contrast that with our ability to actually achieve that perfection in and of ourselves. The law also provides us with great protection from the natural and unhappy consequences that result from breaking the law. It also serves to illustrate the Holiness of God. It makes for healthy relationships between people. I could go on and on about the greatness and perfection of God's law. Like the Psalmist, I have come to an awareness that makes me want to cry, "Oh, how I love your law!" (Psalm 119:97)

But consider what Paul says in Philippians 3:8

"Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him,"

Do you think that the passion Paul expresses here has anything to do with a list of "dos and don'ts"? Think about what Paul is saying. He has suffered the loss of all things. And guess what else? He counts that loss as rubbish. You can't get much more profound and passionate than that. Imagine saying that. "I have lost everything that I had in this life, and I think all of those things are trash and garbage compared to knowing Christ." Whoa.

Consider what David says about the LORD in Psalm 16: 11

"In Your presence is fullness of joy;
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore."


Pleasures forevermore. Fullness of joy. Nothing stale or stick-in-the mud about that.

So, are you someone who has reduced the knowing and loving of the Most High God to a list of things to do and things to avoid? Or, are you someone who has always thought of Christianity as a bunch of rules? I really hope not. If you are, get out of the shallow end. The deep end is where all the best stuff is.

God in a Box?

I want to challenge you a little bit today. Do you have God in a box of your own making? Do you perhaps believe in a God who only exists in you imagination?

I don't mean to imply that God is not real. To the contrary, I believe God is more real and more evident than any other thing in all of existence. But I think that there is a great deal of misinformation about God floating around our culture. This is certainly nothing new. Almost since God revealed Himself to His creation, people have misunderstood Him. I also don't want you to think that I somehow have all of the answers about God. I don't. Not at all. But I do strive to understand Him as He has chosen to reveal Himself to mankind--through His word--the Bible. And I have no doubts that there are some things we can and should be certain about regarding God. I say that so you don't mistake me for someone who claims that everything about God is unknowable. I think that is hogwash.

So, in order to challenge you, I'm going to share some Bible verses that have the potential to confuse you or trouble you. If you find yourself confused or troubled, then good. I want you to seek the answers. For that reason, I'm not going to share with you how I have reconciled these verses with who God is. If you really want to know, leave me a comment and I'll get back to you. But really, what I want is to inspire you to seek that answer for yourself. I think the best way to accomplish that is to read the Bible. So here goes!

1 Samuel 6:19

"Then He struck the men of Beth Shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the LORD. He struck fifty thousand and seventy men of the people, and the people lamented because the LORD had struck the people with great slaughter."

Just as a reference, you should realize that the people God had struck with a great slaughter in this verse are not foreigners or strangers. They are His chosen people, Israel.

1 Samuel 2:25

"Nevertheless they did not heed the voice of their father, because the LORD desired to kill them."

In this verse, one of God's priests has admonished his two sons. They were also priests, and they had been committing all kinds of atrocities in the LORD's temple. But as you can see, their father's warnings fell on deaf ears.

1 Samuel 16:14

"But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and a distressing spirit from the LORD troubled him."

Saul was the first anointed king over Israel. Because he did not obey God, the above verse took place. Another extremely interesting verse that deals with God sending and them removing His Spirit can be found in Numbers 24:2. I'll leave that verse to those of you who want to look it up for yourselves.

1 Samuel 15:3

"Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.

Did God just command Israel to kill woman, children, infants and nursing babies? Yes, He did.

Judges 9:22

"After Abimelech had reigned over Israel three years, God sent a spirit of ill will between Abimelech and the men of Shechem."

Abimelech was one of Gideon's sons (born to his concubine.) He slaughtered all 70 of his own brothers and controlled Israel through force.

And if those verses are not enough to challenge you, try this. Look up Deuteronomy 28: 52-57. It is horrifying almost beyond belief. It details some of the curses that will come upon Israel if they refuse to obey the commands of the LORD.

Now, can you reconcile these verses with your idea of who God is? If you see God as a lovable teddy bear in the sky, I think you will have a hard time digesting all of this. If you see God as some kind of cosmic self-help guru, you will be equally confused. If you see Him as a bleeding heart that just really wishes that folks would do the right thing, you are still missing Him.

God is holy. And God is good. The problem is not with God. It is our understanding of what it means to be holy, and what it means to be good.

Psalm 145:8

"The LORD is gracious and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy."

Heavy Stuff

I've had a question running around in my head for well over a year now. It's one of those things that I think about from time to time, but I don't have a good answer for, so eventually I just give up and think about something else. I always figured that I would eventually run across a scripture that would clarify it for me. Well, I did find a scripture that clarified things, some, but it still makes my head hurt to think about it too long.

Here is the question--Does God use our sin to accomplish His plan? The question seems deceptively simple, but it isn't a simple idea at all!

First, consider that God is sovereign, completely sovereign. There is nothing that happens which God does not allow. To accept this idea, you have to accept that God allows sin. But why in the world would God allow sin if He is holy? Well, the answer is that somehow it all works together for the glory of God. That is the correct answer anyway, but it still leaves me wondering sometimes. This is a great example of a question that I don't think humanity has the ability to understand. What I mean is, not only could we fail to understand the entire answer, if we had access to it, but I don't even think we can understand the question well enough to really ask it. Try not to think about that last sentence too long. I guarantee you will get a headache.

So, back to my original question, does God use our sin to accomplish His plan? I think, tentatively, that I must answer with a "Yes!"

I found my answer in the book of Judges. Now, if you have not read the book of Judges recently, I highly recommend it. I've had my heart broken several times in the past week reading the book of Judges. Not boring at all.

Let me set this up for you. Samson is regarded as one of the greatest judges of Israel. For more on him, consult your Bible, I can't even begin to tell his whole story here. (By the way, I always thought that the judges of Israel were, like, judges. But no, they were warriors, not men who wore long robes and handed down legal opinions--one of those facts I don't remember hearing about in Sunday School!)

So, being the great judge, you would expect that he led a pretty upstanding and moral life. Well, you would be expecting wrong. One of the first instances we hear about regarding Samson is that he sought to marry a Philistine. Yes, that is right, a foreign woman who worshiped idols. Specifically, the god Dagon. Marrying foreign women was explicitly against God's expressed law.

But, nonetheless, Samson had taken a fancy to a Philistine woman, and he determined to marry her. He went to his parents (who by all accounts seemed to be righteous people) and asked that they obtain this Philistine woman as a wife for him. His parents try to talk him out of it.

OK, now here is the verse that blew me out of the water:

Judges 14:4

"But his mother and father did not know that it was of the LORD--that He was seeking an occasion to move against the Philistines."

Well, put that in your pipe and smoke on it for a minute. Did I read that right? God was using Samson's sinful and wrong desire to marry a foreign wife to accomplish His plan? The implications of that are mind-numbing. What does that mean for you and me and our sin?

I'm not sure I can fully answer that question. What I can say is this--God is holy, and God is sovereign. If those two things don't seem to go together to you, join the club. I can't wrap my mind around it either. But, I do believe both things. I hope to someday understand fully, but I don't have any expectation of it happening in this lifetime.

Ephesians 1:11

"In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will,"


The italics added is mine, for emphasis. He works all things according to the counsel of His will. I believe that even includes my sin, and yours too. But as a caution, consider Romans 6:1

"What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not!"

Oh, this post is already too long. I think a whole book could be written about this topic, and probably several already have. But in a nutshell what does all of this mean? Here is my opinion. (Note the word opinion, by the way)

God is gracious to allow even our sins to become part of His ultimate design. The only reason this can happen is because God Himself, as Jesus, paid for the burden of our sin. Otherwise, we would all be doomed. On a personal level, this means that my sins--even the really big, ugly ones, have some greater good that can come out of them. Now, how is that for a gracious God? Pretty gracious if you ask me.

Psalm 103:8

"The LORD is merciful and gracious, Slow to anger, and abounding in mercy."

The Holiness of God

I have never read through the entire Bible from cover to cover. I have done tons of Bible Studies, but I have never completely read the Bible. About a year ago I decided that enough was enough and I needed to get to it and get the Bible read. My goal was to have it finished by the end of 2007. I'm not even close. But that is OK, because I have spent many months of 2007 facilitating Bible Studies that were all very edifying. And just being a mom has taken up a lot of my time. But I'm not giving up, I'm still going to get it all read.

By the way, I really think that Christians should spend more time reading the actual Bible, and less time reading books written about the Bible or inspired by the Bible. Those books are usually excellent and can be very helpful. But I have found that the Holy Spirit has blessed my actual reading of scripture much more than my reading of someone else's interpretation of scripture. They are both good, but one is better.

So anyway, in my quest to read the whole Bible, I read through Leviticus the other night. I hope you have read it too. (I was talking about it in a MOPS group yesterday and I got a bunch of blank stares. Oh well! ) Leviticus deals primarily with the ceremonial law that God established during the time of Moses. It is really specific and very weird to an evangelical Christian living in the 21st century. But like all scripture, there are many lessons to be taken from it. Consider these two passages.

Leviticus 8:18-21

"Then he brought the ram as the burnt offering. And Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the ram, and Moses killed it. Then he sprinkled the blood all around on the altar. And he cut the ram into pieces; and Moses burned the head, the pieces, and the fat. Then he washed the entrails and the legs in water. And Moses burned the whole ram on the altar. It was a burnt sacrifice for a sweet aroma, an offering made by fire to the LORD, as the LORD had commanded Moses."

Leviticus 9:12-14

"And he killed the burnt offering; and Aaron's sons presented to him the blood, which he sprinkled all around the altar. Then they presented the burnt offering to him, with its pieces and head, and he burned them on the altar. And he washed the entrails and the legs, and burned them with the burnt offering on the altar."

Eew. Gross. I get queasy when my steak is too rare. While I was reading these passages (and I purposely tried to pick two of the more graphic passages) I just kept thinking about how disgusting I would find all this blood, and gore and cutting up of animal body parts. Really, this was not a grocery store package of meat neatly wrapped in plastic and sitting in a white styrofoam tray, complete with a pad underneath the meat to soak up any offensive looking blood. These were real live animals being slaughtered and cut up.

I imagine that the smell of blood would be overwhelming. They didn't live in a cold place that would naturally dampen down the smell of blood and body parts.

BUT, I bet they had a pretty good understanding of what sin was. They had a very graphic and up close view of the price that had to be paid for sin. Notice, that they would lay their hands on the head of the animal to be killed. It doesn't get any more up close than that. I doubt that they found these animals adorable and cuddly, the way that we sometimes think of animals in our culture, but still, the picture of what was necessary for atonement was very clear.

Blood and death were required in order for the people to approach God. And that blood and death was necessary because God is so holy. I think we lose that sometimes in our modern culture. We tend to focus so much on God's love and His grace, that maybe we don't spend enough time contemplating His holiness. I think both are essential to a clear understanding of God. You can't really appreciate His grace until you begin to comprehend his holiness.

That is why the Old Testament has been so intriguing to me. I feel like I have a good understanding of grace, but I need a better understanding of holiness. I will have to spend some time elaborating on that in another post. My little ones are going to be up soon.