Biblical Theology for Transformation - 21st Posting

"Remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brothers loved by God, that He has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction."

1 Thessalonians 1:3-5a


The church in Thessolonica was, at the time Paul wrote this letter, the kind of church we all hope to be. They were living their faith with passion for Christ. They were a young church so they had not yet been infiltrated with the work of Satan, or at least they had resisted him. Paul's love for the Thessalonians is laced all throughout this letter. He has a close attachment to them as is seen in 2:7-12, and also in many other places. After Paul had established this church, he left for Athens. Not because he wanted to leave, but because he knew there was persecution coming his way and for the sake of the Thessalonians, he left. You can read all through this letter that Paul attempts and desires to visit them because he has great love for them and he is greatly encouraged by their faith and walk.

This is why Paul says, "your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope." The Thessalonians were doing their thing, and doing it well! Their faith was being displayed in their work. Their love was obvious because they actually labored to make their Christian love seen and known. This was not because of duty, but because of their love for the Lord. And their hope was steadfast. We see the steadfastness of their hope in 4:13-18, where it is clear that they eagerly awaited the return of Jesus. But Paul goes on from there to make an even stronger proclamation.

He says, "in our Lord Jesus Christ." Though Paul was encouraged by their faith, love and hope, he did not want to see them become arrogant in their works. So, Paul begins a God-centered, Christ-centered explanation of their work and salvation. He does this to keep things in perspective for this young and strong church that he loves so deeply. Paul's reminder to them is that their faith, love and hope was ALL IN CHRIST! They had no rights to claim them as their own work and it seems that they didn't. Paul was just emphasizing this truth to keep them on a Christ-centered track.

Paul continues his God-centered theology to the Thessalonians when he says, "For we know, brothers loved by God, that He has chosen you." Paul's theology is right on! And he wants the Thessalonians to be right on also. So, he reminds them that their salvation is not of themselves, but of God, who loved them and chose them. This is Paul's way of continuing to imbed in their minds that, though they are living their faith out well, they are not saved by these works, but they are chosen by God, who loved them. Notice how Paul uses the past tense verb of "loved." The idea here is that, though God STILL loves them, His electing love was at work in them prior to their existence. Therefore, they were chosen. Now that Paul has established the beginning of their salvation in God's election of them, he moves into the manifestation of their salvation played out in their lives.

He says, "because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction." When Paul came to Thessalonica to preach the gospel, some got saved and and Paul led those new converts in the process of beginning a church. Here, Paul explains how their salvation happened. Again, Paul gives no credit to the people of Thessalonica, but to the Holy Spirit. This is Paul's reminder to them that their salvation happened only by the Holy Spirit's conviction in their hearts. With the power of the Holy Spirit convicting them of their sin and bringing them to conversion, they have no claim to salvation in themselves.

Paul lays out a clear picture of God's great saving and sanctifying work in the believer. Granted, the order that Paul describes here is not the actual order of events in salvation for the Christian, but it is not Paul's intent to give them these events in order, but only to encourage them to remain God-centered, Christ-centered and Holy Spirit-centered.

This is Paul's Soteriology(Doctrine of Salvation) in 1 Thessalonians: First, you are loved by God and therefore chosen by God's electing grace. At this point, you are set for heaven. The only thing is that it has not yet been played out in your life. That is where the Holy Spirit comes in. He convicts your heart of sin and a need for salvation from sin in Jesus Christ. This is the actual playing out of your salvation or the manifestation of God's electing grace in choosing you for salvation and heirship with His Son. Once that has happened, all is well, and heaven becomes your home and Jesus, your Lord. However, it doesn't stop there. Paul continues His theology by explaining that God continues to work on us. Our faith, love and hope is necessary and vital to our growth, but it is done, as Paul says, "In our Lord Jesus Christ." Paul's theology is right on. The Father chose us, Jesus died for us and the Holy Spirit convicts and seals our salvation. Notice that Paul's Soteriology involves the entire Trinity, Father, Son and Spirit. Once conversion happens, all three Persons are involved in our sanctification.

So what does this all mean for you? Just as Paul was encouraging the Thessalonians, you too should be encouraged. Our faith in Jesus was not our own work, it was His. Our works after salvation are done only in His power. Paul was reminding the Thessalonians to keep Christ at the center of all that they do. And this is his reminder to us...IT IS ALL ABOUT CHRIST!!! We can not become to elated in ourselves and become arrogant of our Christianity because all that we do is credited to Christ's righteousness on us, not our own. Therefore, be encouraged, God has chosen you, Christ has saved you and the Holy Spirit is at work in you...all for the sake of His name and HIS glory!

God's Sanctifying Work In My Life

I have been growing SO MUCH lately. My class at Urbana Theological Seminary this semester is Old Testament Survey. I have been reading through much of the OT and the teacher is great! God is revealing more and more of Himself to me. I have always been "Christ-centered" in my theology, and I still am. But through my recent growth, God has revealed Himself to me in new ways other than just through Christ (of course realizing that the revelation of God IS in Jesus Christ, but I mean that He has shown Himself to be more than I had previously known). Of course the OT is all about the coming Messiah, but it's also more than that. It's also about a gracious God who is faithful to His covenant and merciful to His people, ultimately so that they be holy as He is holy so that God can be known among the nations! Through this He has shown me my great sinfulness and His great holiness. As God continues to reveal to me more and more of His holiness and more and more of my sinfulness, I see the gap between myself and God grow futher and further away. In that, I am able to see His grace more and more, as He has bridged that gap in Jesus Christ. What a gracious God!!!

I also read an essay on Matthew Henry by Ligon Duncan about Matthew Henry's theology on prayer. It was great! It showed me my shallowness in my prayer life and the need to focus more on God in whole, character, attributes and all that entails Him. Through this recent "revelation", I have seen my own selfishness in my prayer life and I have begun to focus on the person of God...all three Persons. Another part of my prayer life that has been lacking is my confession of sin. God has prompted me to bring my sin before His Throne of Grace. When these two elements come together in prayer, that gap between us and God that I mentioned earlier, grows in my perspective and I understand His grace more and more. Therefore, in understanding and appreciating His grace more, I find Him more and more worthy of my praise and adoration! Not that He was ever less worthy, but I have personally come to know His worth more. After all this during prayer, I bring my personal petitions and petitions for others to Him. At this point, they no longer become selfish, but purposeful to His glory. It changes my perspective on how I pray for myself and others. These petitions become more Christ-centered and God-glorifying.

I have also grown in many other ways lately. I have been studying eschatology and my theology in that doctrine has grown. God has shown me so much in the Bible about my pride and my need to put Him first. One way that has happend is that I was directed to a website: http://www.iamsecond.com/ . It's a great website. Just a bunch of testimonies from famous people who are Christians and how God has made Himself first in their lives. However, I disagree that we should be second. We should be like...5,827,349,283,743rd place. Because we are to live to please others before ourselves after we please God and we also please God by pleasing others.

I hope this testimony of God's wonderful sanctifying work in my life is an encouragement for you to become closer to Him. I must mention that if you notice, all the growth in my life is initiated by God, NOT ME! But I cannot ignore the personal responsibility I have to yearn after Him and desire Him with all of my soul, heart and mind. RUN after Him! He will feed your soul! He will grow your mind! He will swell your heart with affection for Him! He will give you a love and appreciation of Him and His worth in Jesus Christ!

I cannot begin to mention all the ways that God has dealt with my sin through this time of great growth. Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." I believe He is talking about eternal rest, but the truth applies that He certainly handles our burdens as we live this life. GOD IS AFTER YOUR HEART! I remember when I was living deep in my sin and though the Spirit was convicting me, I was ignoring Him. Then one night after drinking, I came home while living at my parents house. I saw a single white sheet of paper on the counter. It was from my Dad and it said in all cap's, "MARK, GOD WANTS YOU!"
I will never forget the impact that had on my life. God used my Dad to begin a process of saving me from my sinful ways. To think that He has brought me from that state to become an ambassador of His gospel for Jesus Christ, staggers my mind! What a gracious God! What a merciful God! What a loving God! What a faithful God! What a forgiving God! What a glorious God! What a holy God He is!

Biblical Theology for Transformation - 20th Posting

"Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equility with God a thing to be grasped. But made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

-Philippians 2:5-11


Paul begins chapter two by encouraging the readers to understand that they need to be humble. In verse 3, Paul said, "Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves." Paul was trying to get the Philippians to live lives that reflected the attitude and behavior of their God and Savior, Jesus Christ. So, Paul starts in verse 5 by describing the humility Christ took on in order to become the exalted King. Humility is a difficult thing live out. We certainly want to be humble, but the actual act of humility is much harder than the concept. However, Christ accomplished this and though we will never measure up to Christ, we should always be striving to be more like Him.

In Philippians 2, we are given the example of Jesus Christ's walk of humility through His life. It's short to say the least, but it is accurate and it magnifies His humility and it's result. Let's quickly walk through Philippians 2:5-11.

2:5 "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus."
Paul is encouraging the readers to live lives that reflect Christ in His humility. If in any case they are discouraged, thinking that it is an impossible task, Paul reminds them that they have this in Christ Jesus. What Paul is essentially saying is, Christ took on the ultimate form of humility in our place. We certainly need to strive to be humble, but Christ accomplished ultimate humility for us by being an atoning sacrifice. Therefore, be encouraged, and be like Christ...humble.

2:6 "who(Christ), though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped."
The beginning of Jesus' humility is that of greatest display. Of all people in the history of the world to be certain of their boasting in their rightful place of exaltation, it is Jesus Christ. He IS GOD! He had all the right in the world to stand up and declare Himself King of all. But rather, He made Himself an example as part of His atonement. He counted Himself as low in order to be lifeted up. This should be the attitude of the believer. If Christ humbles Himself and He is God, who are we, as mere humans and creation, to not be humble?

2:7 "But made Himself nothing"
Here, Christ, who is King of kings and Lord of lords, makes Himself NOTHING! How's that for an example. This is step 1 in Christ humbling Himself.

"taking the form of a servant"
Jesus takes another step down. He is the creator of the universe and He is humble enough (for our sake and His glory) to take on the form of a servant to the creation that He created.

"being born in the likeness of men"
Another step down. Jesus takes step after step, making Himself lower and lower to the point of being BORN. He is God and brings Himself to the point of incarnation into human flesh for the sake of His creation. In Genesis 1, He created man in HIS likeness and now, in the incarnation, He humbles Himself enough to be born into the likeness of MEN. Not only that, but Christ is eternal. Meaning that He always was and always will be. So the fact that he was even BORN, is an act of humility.

"and being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death."
Christ takes another step down in humility. Not only has He taken on the form of human flesh in order to redeem mankind, our eternal God took on death! It is interesting that the only time Christ is described as "humble" in this text is when it refers to His death. This magnifies the importance of this stepping down in humility. Had Christ been humble in all the previous things but not humble unto death, it would have all been in vein. But instead our Savior, makes Himself and example of humility and a sacrifice on our behalf and suffers death for us in our place.

"even death on a cross"
The final and ultimate step. There was no worse death in Christ's day than death on a cross. It was the most horrible way to die in those days. It involved the most amount of suffering prior to actual death and it was a place that thieves and the crooked died. It was the most disrespectful form of capitol punishment. And Christ took on that identity in the eyes of the world in order to make an atonement for us.

"Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
All these steps down that Christ takes in humility finally pay off. CHRIST IS EXALTED! This is the perfect picture of the results of humility. It is not our own exaltation that makes us great, it is the our humility that allows God to exalt us. And this exaltation is found only in Christ Jesus. What a wonderful display of God's perfect plan for man kind in providing for us a humble Savior, who after being humble is exalted above all. Notice how EVERYONE will declare that He is Lord. In heaven (even the angels will declare His glory). On earth (those who are still alive at His return). Under earth (those who are dead). EVERY tongue and EVERY knee will bow! Think of the person who refuses to ackowledge Christ as Savior and God. That person will one day bow before Christ and declare Him Lord, no matter their relationship to Him. In all this, Christ's greatest display of humility is that He knows it is not His own glory He seeks, but the glory of the Father, who in turn, glorifies the Son!

What an awesome Savior. What an awesome display of humility. We too, need to make less of ourselves, which in turn, makes much of Him and in the end, He will lift us up and exalt us. But our exaltation will be in HIS GLORY, not our own! Thank You Jesus!

Biblical Theology for Transformation - 19th Posting

The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgressions and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and fourth generation."

Exodus 34:5-7



Ever wonder what God thinks about God? Well if you would like to know, just read this passage from Exodus 34:5-7. It begins by telling us that the LORD came down on a cloud to speak to Moses and "proclaimed the name of the LORD." The all-capital letters, LORD, is His name. It speaks of His relatable personality and that He is a God who has a name and is personal toward us. Then the passage moves into the LORD actually speaking. The LORD begins to speak of Himself and proclaim to Moses and us who He is and what He values in Himself. Of course this is not an exhaustive list, but the fact that He would speak these things of Himself should lead us to lend and ear to what He has to say.

He begins by describing Himself as "merciful and gracious." Remember that this is an Old Testament passage. Most people, when they think about God, think of Him as a God who was a God of wrath and anger in the Old Testament and a God who is gracious in the New Testament. Don't be confused! God's greatest display of His wrath takes place in the New Testament when He pours out His wrath for sin on His Son Jesus Christ on the cross. But here in the Old Testament when God meets with Moses on Mount Sinai, He calls Himself merciful and gracious. It is interesting that He begins His description of Himself with these two terms. Mercy is God not giving us something we deserve. In our case, we deserve the wrath of God for our sins, but because of His mercy, He chooses not to punish us for our sins. Grace is undeserved favor, or God giving us something we don't deserve. In our case, God showed us mercy by not giving us the punishment we deserve and He shows His grace by giving us Jesus Christ as a substitute on the cross to pay for our sins and absorb our punishment. The God of the Old Testament is a merciful and gracious God.

He goes on from there to tell us that He is "slow to anger." God is patient with us! That means that God has a long fuse. He is patient with us in the form of not condemning us in our sin, but waiting to the point of our redemption so that His wrath does not have to be poured out on us. While we are believers His slowness to anger is shown in that He sometimes holds back the consequences of our sin. He waits patiently for as to not arouse His anger against us in our sin. This is all because of His grace and mercy.

Then He says of Himself, "abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness." The Hebrew word for love here is hasad(with a hard H). This hasad is a loyal love. It is a love that bonds Himself to us. He loves without regret even when we are in the midst of our sin. The Hebrew for faithfulness is emet. In the Hebrew, emet, means Truth. His faithfulness is to Himself and since He is the Truth(John 14:6), He is faithful to Himself. As we learn about His mercy, grace, patience and steadfast love, we see that faithfulness to Himself includes these things and His faithfulness to be these things toward us. What security that brings into the life of the believer! Also, a key word here is "abounding." God's steadfast love and faithfulness is so much that it does not run out. It is a love that is overflowing and we are it's receipients. We can fearlessly know that God will be loving and faithful to Himself and to us forever!

He continues to describe His love by saying, "keeping steadfast love for thousands." The word "thousands" does not describe a number of people, but a number in years. A better translation of this word is to say, "to the thousandth generation." A generation is defined as 40 years. 40 times 1,000 equals 40,000. That is a long time! You may think that it's been a long time since this was written, so it probably has passed by now. God spoke this to Moses about 3,300 years ago. We aren't even close to 40,000 yet! God's love is so steadfast and so unending that it will last throughout all generations. That means that even today, He tells us that His love is steadfast toward us and never ending.

God shows His heart for man when He says, "forgiving iniquity and transgressions and sin." There is really no difference between these three descriptive words; iniquity, transgressions and sin. They all describe sin. The idea that God is portraying to us is that His forgiveness extends to all kinds of sin. It does not matter what your sin may be, His forgiveness is enough. In James 5:20, James speaks of God's forgiveness as "covering a multitude of sins." This means that God's forgiveness covers any and all sins no matter their severity. This should bring the believer to a place of worship to think that God would cover all of our sins and forgive in ways that we do not deserve.

Now God shifts into "wrath mode". He says, "but who will by no means clear the guilty." God will punish the unrepentant sinner who does not believe in His Son Jesus Christ. This part of the passage should also evoke praise in our hearts that God would forgive our sins and that we do not have to suffer the consequences of our sin, but that we receive His grace and mercy and love. John 3:36 says, "whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him." That is a scary thought to imagine that the wrath of God looms overhead as He patiently waits for the sinner to repent and turn to Christ for salvation. For those whom He has not chosen, that wrath will find it's satisfaction in the judgment and death of the sinner. For the chosen, that wrath was already satisfied on the cross.

He tells us of the result of the sin of all men by saying, "visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and fourth generation." By speaking of the closeness of a child to the sinner, God is telling us that our sin affects those who are closest to us. This part of the passage is NOT telling us that God will puposely inflict our children and our children's children because of our sin. God does not keep track of sin as to repay our sin with his wrath one for one. Though God certainly knows each of our sins, all he needs to keep track of is whether or not you are connected to Christ. The idea that is being presented is that our sin affects us and even those closest to us like our children. When we are caught in sin, that sin gets naturally transfered to our children. Part of the reason is because we in some non-cognitive way inpose our sins on our children because that sin is such a close part of our lives. When a father is wrapped up in sin, there is no doubt that his child will see that sin and most likely manifest the same stuggle in it's life, therefore affecting the future generations of the father. Don't get caught up in the logic here, the idea is clear; when you sin, it affects those who love you and whom you love.

Ultimately, the whole point of this text is that the LORD is describing the LORD. He is telling us plain as day what He wants us to know about Him. This should move us to worship Him for His grace, mercy, patience, love and faithfulness. This should also move us to worship Him because He has chosen us not be objects of His wrath, but that He patiently waits for us as we are drawn near to Him. This text puts to rest the idea that God was merely a vengful and wrathful God in the Old Testament. We need to read and apply this text to our hearts and our lives and let it draw us close to Him as He is the object of our affections. What a glorious God who love us!

Biblical Theology for Transformation - 18th Posting

"But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people."

2 Timothy 3:1-5



"The world is going to get ugly!" If that is your response to this passage, you may be in for a suprise. Paul is telling Timothy about the outward sinfulness of many as the end of times comes closer. What may suprise you is that Paul is not talking about the world, he is talking about the church! Scary! Do we know people like this in our churches? As I read through this list, I could probably check off a few for myself. The problem though, is that so many in the church are becoming more and more like the way Paul describes here.

I believe there are many reasons why this will happen and is happening. One is pretty obvious; God is sovereign. People's sinfulness in the end of times is part of the story that God tells. Two, there are so many false teachers out there infiltrating the minds of believers and the minds of non-believers causing false conversions and deceiving the believers. Three, the non-false teachers aren't teaching Biblical exegesis. When a preacher teaches his own ideas and has not examined the text to allow the Holy Spirit to develop the sermon and exhort the text, the listeners will be fed mush and will have stunted growth. Four, there is not enough Christian accountability. There are too many Christians doing things that they ought not to and there is no one to tell them they are in sin. So their sin grows and leads to deeper and greater sin. There are many more reasons for this decline in the church as the end approaches, but we will leave it at that for now. Let me make this clear; as many churches are filled with people who live in these sins, there are also many churches being filled with passionate Christians who are truly seeking to be more Biblical and obedient to Christ and His Word.

The question then becomes...in which of these sins do you participate? Of course, our flesh arises and desires to do all of these things, but according to Paul in Galatians 5:17, the Spirit is within us and is at war with our flesh. So the war continues, but for the Christian, Christ is victorious. So though we fall into sin as believers, we must recognize that we cannot dwell too heavily on our sin. Once we do, we come to close to becoming legalistic. We must recognize that God does not require our perfect lives in order to please Him...He requires Christ's perfect life in order to please Him. Once we realize that we will understand what Paul meant when he said in Galatians 5:18, "but if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law." What Paul is telling us is that, though we battle daily against our flesh, in the Spirit we are free to live lives that produce the fruit described in verses 22-23.

So a warning and encouragement are in need. The warning: be aware of those who do the things that Paul describes to Timothy. At the end of the passage, Paul says, "avoid such people." We cannot associate with those who practice sin without regard for Christ. The encouragement: Though you too may have some of these sins in your life, you must recognize that your sins have already been paid for. Once we begin to grasp that, we will begin to live in the freedom to serve and love Christ that He purchased for us.

Close to God

Do you ever feel far from God?

I think we all do in some ways at some times in our lives. We show up on a Sunday morning feeling like we don't belong because of the sin in our lives. We condemn ourselves because of our sin and therefore feel as though God does not accept us. This is a huge problem! Romans 8:1 says, "There is now, therefore, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Condemnation is a guilty judgment. God says that for those who in Christ Jesus there is no guilty judgment because the guilty sentence was placed on the shoulders of Jesus Christ on the cross and nailed there to be buried and left dead. So when we show up to worship and we carry those very burdens that Christ died for, we are essentially saying that Christ's payment for our sins was not enough. We are saying that His grace is not enough. John tells us in 1 John 3:19-24 that though our heart condemns us(because the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked-Jeremiah 17:9), God is greater than our hearts. That means that even though we condemn ourselves for our sin, God's gift of freedom in Jesus Christ is greater than our sin. Not only that but John says, "and God knows everything." God knows more about your sinful heart than you do. He knows of sins you committed that you don't even know you committed. Therefore, God has more reason than you to condemn you, yet He doesn't condemn you because Jesus took your guilty verdict. So who are you to condemn youself?

As Christians, we need to start living in the freedom that Jesus purchased for us and stop living as though God does not accept us. He accepts us FULLY, not because of what we have done or not done, but because of what Jesus did for us. Freedom in the Christian life is far too lacking these days. We need to begin to realize that in Christ "we have boldness and access with confidence"(Eph.3:12). We have full access to the Father because Jesus bridged the gap and we have boldness to come to God confidently because we are completely accepted by God at all times because we are IN Jesus Christ.

When we feel as though God is not pleased with us and we feel as though we can't worship Him because of our sin, who are we focusing on? Ourselves! To focus your energy on your sin problem is a selfish act. Instead, God tells us to put on the mind of Christ. We need to focus on Him and not ourselves. When our sin has us down, realize the truth that Jesus set you free from that sin and burden and begin to live TO God. When we begin to realize this truth, we will find so much freedom in Jesus Christ and begin to put away that old man that thinks he is unworthy. We find our worth in Jesus Christ and to approach God as though we are unworthy is a claim that Jesus is unworthy.

Stop focusing on your sin and start realizing, "For freedom Christ has set you free"(Gal. 5:1). Worship God as though He set you free from sin and now gives you freedom to worship Him.

Biblical Theology for Transformation - 17th Posting

"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty."
-Revelation 4:8

What is God's central characteristic? Most people would say that God is love, referencing 1 John 4:8. Though it is true that God is love; love is not His main attribute. GOD IS HOLY!!! We often find solice in God's love, but rarely do we look to His holiness as a place of comfort. In our culture and society there is such a desire from people to have their ears tickled, that preachers spend all their time preaching on the "easy to swallow" messages about God's love. Yes, Jesus loves you. However, without His holiness, there is no love. God's holiness is the attribute of God in which ALL of His other attributes flow from. Everything about God is funneled through His holiness.

We often hear messages about how God loves you so much that He sent His only Son to die for us. Again, that is Biblically accurate, but it is not the whole story. Why did God send His Son? To pay or atone for our sins! Why does our sin need atoning? Because God hates our sin! Why does God hate our sin? BECAUSE HE IS HOLY!!! It is God's holiness that caused Him to punish sin. The punishment for our sin lies on our shoulders. We are responsible for our own sin and thus incur the penalty for our sin which is God's wrath. Because God loves us, He was gracious to send Jesus to die in our place and offered Himself to take on the punishment of the wrath of God. It is God's holiness that causes Him to punish our sin, and it is His love that provoked Him to say, "I will pay for you."

Let us not forget that our God is a holy God. Holiness is ascribed to God far more often in scripture than is love. Let us start preaching about God's hatred for sin and His standard of holiness that we cannot achieve without the atoning death of Jesus Christ. Though it is His love that made Him take our place, it is His holiness that moved Him to love. Let us set for ourselves a standard of holiness that causes us to love, not so that love is the end, but that God is glorified in our exaltation of His holiness through our holiness in Jesus Christ. His holiness is a standard we cannot achieve apart from Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is One we cannot achieve apart from His grace. Let us begin to grasp the full spectrum of the gospel all wrapped around the glory of His holiness, for our God is holy!