Who is God?: Holy, Holy, Holy Part 1

"In the year that King Uzziah died, 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. And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;

    the whole earth is full of his glory.”

- Isaiah 6:1-3

"Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings. Day and night they never stop saying:

“‘Holy, holy, holy

is the Lord God Almighty,'

who was, and is, and is to come.”

- Revelation 4:8

"As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”

- 1 Peter 1:14-16

When I asked my Jr High students what the characteristics of God were, the first answer was: loving, and the second was: merciful. I feel that if you asked this question in most every youth group in America that the answers would be very similar to these. We like focusing on what I would perceive to be the easily-stomached attributes of God. We like God when He is loving, forgiving, gracious, and merciful, but when we continue to focus on these attributes, we can reject the rest.

If I took a general poll of the general population of how they would generally describe God in one word or less, besides a general amount of silence, generally I feel the answer would be "Love." This answer is okay, since in 1 John 4:8 we read "The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love" (NASB). If this is your answer, then it is very easy to describe God as loving, forgiving, gracious, and merciful. These things naturally and easily flow from a God who is love.

These qualities do flow from God, because He is love, but these are not all of God's attributes. What about His wrath and justice? Are we able to believe that a god who is summed up by the word "love" to be wrathful and truly just? Many Christians today still struggle with people who do evil things getting due punishment such as the death penalty, or even Osama Bin Laden being killed, because God has extended grace to them. This is even a struggle with earthly justice, but what about Hell? God being wrathful and just and Hell being a real place, can be difficult teachings from Scripture when your "Love-God" could not allow that.

I would propose, that instead of trying to sum up who God is by "love" why not try "holy" out and see what we get. Interestingly, we find that love and holiness are not opposites, but instead that love can (and does) flow out of holiness, but holiness does not necessarily flow out of love. Not everything (or most things) that are said of humans apply to God, but it is interesting that in 1 Thessalonians 3:12-13 it seems to strongly suggest that you have to be loving to be holy, but not the other way around.

God is directly described as holy many more times than he is directly described as love, yet we are more likely to say "God is love" than to say that "God is holy." I need more than one post to give due time to the holiness of God, but I think that we will find that if we start with "God is Holy," then "God is Love" and other biblical truths makes more sense, than if we begin with "God is Love."

Vacation and Bible Study

The Blog Lays Silent,
The Facebook feed no longer fills,
Twitter is not tweeting,
This is not a matter of my will...or is it?

We have access to the Internet,
By tablet or by phone,
When we are so connected,
We can never feel alone,

When we travel on a road trip,
The temptation is always there,
To update all our networks,
Or search through everyone's affairs,

So many of us are addicted,
Like some of us are to pills,
So how can we follow edicts,
To be silent and "Be Still"?

I found myself feeling guilty,
For not updating and not showing,
Everyone on the world wide web,
What I was doing and where I was going,

So I snapped a few photos,
Uploaded them with my phone,
We really have come a long way,
From tablets made of stone,

But our need now to communicate,
Has made us slaves to self,
We like our likes more than motorbikes,
Page views are our new wealth,

We blog, we vlog, we update status,
We seem to have so much to share,
Have we ever asked if it matters?
Have we asked if anyone cares?

But I opened up my Bible,
I did not care who was around,
I did not care if I should tell the world
In that moment the Truth I found,

Hid the Word within my heart,
Let it change me from within,
Because sometimes the future,
Is exactly where we begin.

I wrote this because I was trying to find a way to express my feelings during this vacation. If you had been following my blog for the last two weeks since I began blogging again, you would notice that I was looking at the Uniqueness of God's people for about a week, and then it was silent. I went on vacation, and I continued doing character studies as part of my personal devotions. But I kept getting down on myself because "Eric you just started blogging again and were beginning to gain steam again and now you haven't kept up with it on your vacation." But then I remembered the Psalmist who wrote "Tremble and do not sin; Meditate in your heart upon your bed, and BE STILL..."(Psalm 4:4).

We need to continue to be reminded, because I know that what I am saying is not new, that we can become so busy that we are no longer listening to what it is that God is doing. I challenge you, once you are done reading this post, turn off your phone, turn off your computer, open God's Word and get excited about it for the first time or like me, get excited about it like when I began this amazing journey with our Savior.