The LORD reigns; let the peoples
tremble!
He sits enthroned upon the cherubim;
let the earth quake!
The LORD is great in Zion;
he is exalted over all the peoples.
Let them praise your great and awesome
name!
Holy is he!
The King in his might loves justice.
You have established equity;
you have executed justice
and righteousness in Jacob.
Exalt the LORD our God;
worship at his footstool!
Holy is he!
God reigns
from His throne. He is exalted over everyone, He is great, has a holy name, He
is holy, He is just! He is set apart – different from everyone – pure – mighty
– glorious – just – faithful… the list is inexhaustible and overwhelming.
Too often,
we approach our God in our own supposed
sufficiency and with superficiality.
When
Daniel saw the glory of God, he fell on his face, without strength. When John
saw the Lord, he fell and worshiped.
Revelation 1:17-18
When I saw him, I fell at his feet as
though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the
first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am
alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.
When
Isaiah had his vision, he could not remain indifferent.
Isaiah
6:1-7
In the year that King Uzziah died I
saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his
robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with
two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he
flew. And one called to another and said:
“Holy,
holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;
the
whole earth is full of his glory!”
And
the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the
house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe
is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst
of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of
hosts!”
Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having
in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he
touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is
taken away, and your sin atoned for.”
If seeing
and understanding who God is does not drive us to our knees and expose to us the
immensity of our sin, then something is not right. No man who has his eyes
opened to understand the holiness of God can be indifferent to his sin. The
grace of God in atoning for our sin should be so very evident in contrast to
the standards of His holiness, that it should change us forever!
Praise and
worship can be the only response. God is HOLY!
True
believers know the gravity of their sins and know that if they can approach God
in any way, it cannot be by anything they do or say, but only because of His
grace toward us. To believe that there is anything good in us, or that we can
do anything good to attract God’s favor, is total foolishness. In fact, it is a
total deception.
Psalm
99:6-9
Moses and Aaron were among his
priests,
Samuel also was among those who called
upon his name.
They called to the LORD, and he
answered them.
In the pillar of the cloud he spoke to
them;
they kept his testimonies
and the statute that he gave them.
O LORD our God, you answered them;
you were a forgiving God to them,
but an avenger of their wrongdoings.
Exalt the LORD our God,
and worship at his holy mountain;
for the LORD our God is holy!
When God
speaks, we must listen and obey! God is the only One who forgives, but He does
it only when we approach Him on His terms, with appropriate humility and with
repentance of our sins.
God’s
holiness drives us to our knees when we understand it, for it causes true repentance
and godly sorrow for sin. It also produces unending gratitude and worship, and
leads us to yearn to walk in holiness.
When Paul
encountered the pure brilliance of Christ on the way to Damascus, he fell on
his face and he was never the same again.
If we truly
reflect on God’s holiness, we cannot continue to embrace sin in our lives. We
cannot justify it! May our lives be different because we have seen the only
true God through the Scriptures!
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