"You shall be holy, for I am holy. "
1 Peter 1:16
ENCOUNTERING A HOLY GOD
Read It: Psalm 11:4-7 If you were high above the earth and looked down on one man standing on a mountaintop and another standing in a valley, they would look to you as if they were standing side by side. You would be so high that the small matter of a mountain would be irrelevant. God is so high that when He sees us in relation to sin, we are all standing on level ground. Our God is holy, totally separate from sin. He can't even stand to look at it (Habakkuk 1:13). But most people's attitude toward sin is epitomized by the attitude of the famous naturalist, Henry David Thoreau. When urged to make his peace with God, Thoreau answered, "I did not know that we had ever quarreled." There's been a quarrel, all right! God's got the quarrel with us, because we have all offended His holiness. All people need to be saved, because everyone has the same problem.
The Bible says, "There is none righteous, not even one" (Romans 3:10). Someone might object, "But that's not fair." Sure it is. Suppose you were sick, and as the doctor was getting ready to operate on you, he said, `All of my scalpels are dirty. I've got one that I just picked up out of the mud. It's real dirty. I've got another one that's a little better, but it still has dirt on it. Now I've got this one scalpel that's just got a little spot of dirt on it. So I think we will chance this operation with this slightly dirty scalpel." Not on me! All it takes is a few germs to contaminate your whole body. I want my doctor's scalpel to be absolutely clean when he cuts me open. In the same way, God is so holy that He is as offended by an evil thought as He is by murder. While there are differences in the consequences of sin, there is no difference in essence. That's how holy God is, how totally unlike us. We have to do the adjusting. ing. He's not going to change. When you understand the holiness of God, something's got to happen. Have you made the adjustment?
Think About It If God were not perfectly holy, He would simply be a slightly better version of us, not a Person worthy of our worship.
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