Holiness

Holy

The word itself is rather daunting and seemingly impossible, not to mention we perceive rather ho-hum.  God is holy, I am not. Forget it, it's not even worth trying.  If that were the case, God would have never instructed us to strive for holiness.  The reality is we can't be holy apart from Him.  And speaking of the   
ho-hum of holiness....

"How little people know who think that Holiness is dull. When one meets the real thing... It's irresistible." CS LEWIS

And when it comes to God, we should be gloriously ecstatic that he is Holy. If not, we are in deep trouble, because then he would be just like you and me.

"God, being the Eternal, holy God, cannot change. He will not go from better to worse. You cannot think of God being any less holy than he is now, any less righteous than he is now. God must remain infinitely holy, fixed, forever unchanging in holiness. He cannot go from worse to better for the simple reason that God, being absolutely holy, cannot go beyond himself. He cannot get any holier than he is now, or go from less good to better.  God is not better or greater, he is simply already the apex, the fountain, the top and great." AW TOZER

Great God!

God, Both In and Above All Things

There is indeed no one like our God as the song writer has said.  If we could, in our finiteness, fully comprehend or adequately be able to descibe Him, He wouldn't be God.  Yet it behooves us to contemplate, ponder and as best we can wrap our finite minds around His absolute greatness and infiniteness.

"God’s immanence refers to His presence within His creation. (It is not to be confused with imminence, which refers to the timing of Jesus’ return to earth.) A belief in God’s immanence holds that God is present in all of creation, while remaining distinct from it. In other words, there is no place where God is not. His sovereign control extends everywhere simultaneously.

Pantheism and deism twist many people’s view of how God relates to His creation. Pantheists believe that everything is God or is a part of God, making Him equal with His creation and unable to act upon it. Deists hold that God is distinct from His creation but deny that He plays an active role in it. Contrary to these and other false views of God, the Bible says that God is both different from His creation and actively upholding it.

Transcendence (God exists outside of space and time) and immanence (God is present within space and time) are both attributes of God. He is both “nearby” and “far away,”" (From GotQuestions.org)

"God is above all things, beneath all things, outside of all things, and inside of all things. God is above, but he's not pushed up. He's beneath, but he's not press down. He's outside, but he's not excluded. He's inside, but he's not confined. God is above all things presiding, beneath all things sustaining, outside of all things in bracing, and inside of all things filling. That is the immanence of God." AW TOZER

Indeed How Great Is Our God!

And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.   Colossians 1:17

Big God!

"How Big Is God?"

As a pastor from time to time I get asked that daunting question by a sweet little child.  To which I often reply from my Veggie Tales Theology..."God is higher than the boggie man, He's bigger than Godzilla and the monsters on TV..."

Well that is true and He is even bigger because He is transcendent.  Now try defining transcendence to a 3 year old. 

You may find this hard to believe, but God is just as far above an archangel as he is above a caterpillar.....Why? Because both the Archangel and the caterpillar are creatures. And God is an uncreated one who had no beginning, the self-existent one who was never created, but who was simply God, who made all things.  There is a vast gulf, and all but infinite gulf, fix between that which is God and that which is not God between The Great I Am and all created things, from the Archangel down to the tiniest virus that cannot be seen with the naked eye. God made all that and is just as high above one as He is the other. God's uncreated quality of life causes him to be transcendent, to rise High Above All Creatures."  AW TOZER

Yet God, in all His trancendent infiniteness, has chosen to reveal himself to us, and desires to have a personal intimate relationship with us through his son Jesus Christ.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord . For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55:8‭-‬9

Be A Blessing

It certainly is wonderful to be blessed, but an even greater joy is to be a blessing.  The old hymn is never out of date.  Who will you bless this week?

Make Me a Blessing

Out in the high-ways and by-ways of life,
Many are weary and sad;
Carry the sunshine where darkness is rife,
Making the sorrowing glad.

 
CHORUS:
Make me a blessing, Make me a blessing --
Out of my life May Jesus shine;
Make me a blessing, O Savior, I pray,
Make me a blessing to someone today.

Tell the sweet story of Christ and His love,
Tell of His power to forgive;
Others will trust Him if only you prove
True, every moment you live.

Give as 'twas given to you in your need,
Love as the Master loved you;
Be to the helpless a helper indeed,
Unto your mission be true.

Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered.
Proverbs 11:25

Power Source

The Source

Generators are great when the power goes out, the light switch is wonderful when the room is dark, the floor jack is remarkable when the tire is flat but all power must have a greater source.  What source of power are you grasping for? When all the lights go out in life, where is the adequate power needed to see and navigate through the maze?

"God is the source of all power there is. There isn't any power anywhere that doesn't have God as its source, whether it be the power of the intellect, of the spirit, of the soul, of dynamite, of the storm, or of magnetic attraction. Wherever there is any power at all, God is the author of it. And the source of anything has to be greater than that which flows out of it." AW TOZER

‘O Lord God , You have only begun to show Your servant Your greatness and Your mighty hand; for what god is there in heaven or on earth that can do such works and mighty acts (miracles) as Yours?  DEUTERONOMY 3:24

Eager?

With Eager Anticipation....

I remember a a child eagerly awaiting the coming of Christmas morning.  Opening the gifts, what sheer joy for a child's heart. 

Am as eager about the coming of Christ? The gift has been partly revealed in the Bible yet the fullness of all that awaits in heaven, we will be opening for an eternity of Christmas mornings.

He who testifies and affirms these things says, “Yes, I am coming quickly.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.  REVELATION 22:20

I Am Thankful For What I Can Count On

Thankful For What You Can Count On?

The floor, a calculator.....okay you get the idea, but what about something other than an inanimate object?   We would like to think we will always be there, or that we can be counted on to always be faithful...but no the reality is we can't be. You spouse won't be, nor your children or your neighbor, your job, really nothing.  However there is one you can always count on to be faithful.
"That is the fact before us: God is faithful. He will remain faithful because he cannot change he is perfectly faithful, because God is never partly anything. God is perfectly all that he is and never partly what he is. You can be sure that God will always be faithful... this faithful God, who never broke a promise and never violated a covenant, who never said one thing and then another, who never overlooked or forgot , this Is Our God"  AW TOZER

God is faithful [He is reliable, trustworthy and ever true to His promise--He can be depended on], and through Him you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
1 CORINTHIANS 1:9

He has remembered His covenant forever, The word which He commanded and established to a thousand generations...PSALM 105:8

The Glory of God

In all the hustle and bustle of everyday life we(I) miss the glory of God all around us.

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Psalm 19:1

"Reading my Bible, I am greatly impressed by the manner in which Godly men of old revealed in their writings an intense love for every natural beauty around them. They saw nature as the handiwork of an all-powerful and all glorious creator!  In our generation, how rarely we get into a situation where we can feel the impulses of nature communicated to us. We seldom have time to lift our eyes to look at God's heaven-except when we are wondering if we should wear our boots!" AW Tozer

Watch this an be re-amazed at the glory of our great God and Creator!

https://youtu.be/F79Ck8rFIes

Don't Forget The Cost

Never Forget

I was reminded this morning, reading Oswald Chambers, that my sin(and all to often my continuing sin) and insuing forgiveness came at an agonizing cost.

" The only ground on which God can forgive us is the tremendous tragedy of the Cross of Christ; to put forgiveness on any other ground is unconscious blasphemy. The only ground on which God can forgive sin and reinstate us in His favor is through the Cross of Christ, and no other way. Forgiveness, which is so easy for us to accept, cost the agony of Calvary. It is impossible to take the forgiveness of sin, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and our sanctification with a simplicity of faith, and to forget at what enormous cost to God it was all made ours."

For the message of the cross is foolishness [absurd and illogical] to those who are perishing and spiritually dead [because they reject it], but to us who are being saved [by God’s grace] it is [the manifestation of] the power of God.  1 CORINTHIANS 1:18

Mercy

Praise the Lord ! (Hallelujah!) Oh give thanks to the Lord , for He is good; For His mercy and lovingkindness endure forever!
PSALM 106:1

"God is merciful.  As I said about the other attributes of deity, Mercy is not something God has but something got is. If Mercy was something God had, conceivably God might miss lay it or use it up. It might become less or more. But since it is something that God is, then we must remember that it is uncreated. The mercy of God always was in being, for Mercy is what God is and God is eternal. And God is infinite." AW TOZER

Mercy is God not punishing us as our sin deserves.  I am so thankful mercy is who God is not something He has. 

Cheap or Infinite?

Is Your God Cheap or Infinite?

There are certainly times that we shrink the greatness of God, we must be careful that we don't bow to reductionism.  That is not to say we can't use anthrophormorphic(human terms that describe an indescribable God) terms, because that's the best we can do with our limited vocabulary.  However don't reduce God to a genie in the bottle. 

"God, to be God, must be infinite in all he is. He must have no bound and no limit, no stopping place, no point Beyond which he can't go. When you think of God or anything about God you'll have to think infinitely about God. You may have a charlie horse in your head for two weeks after trying to follow this, but it's a mighty good cure for this little cheap god we have today. This little cheap god we've made up is one you can pal around with-"the Man upstairs," the fellow who helps you win baseball games. That god isn't the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He isn't the God who laid the foundations of the Heaven and the Earth; he's some other god."  AW TOZER

Now to the King of the ages [eternal], immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.  1 TIMOTHY 1:17

Don't Grow Weary

"Right now you may be in the middle of a long stretch of the same old routine. The beginning of your Christian Life was exhilarating. Your spiritual adrenaline was pumped up. But now there are miles behind you in miles to go. You don't hear any cheers or applause. The days run together, and so do the weeks. Your commitment to keep putting one foot in front of the other is starting to falter."   Joni Erickson Tada

Don't loose sight of the finish line nor the beauty even in the hardships and mundane along the way.  God has you right where you are for a grand an glorious purpose.  He is not finished with you yet. 

"Someone once said the challenge of living is,  to develop a long obedience in the same direction. When it's demanded, we can rise on occasion and be patient... as long as there are limits. But we balk when patience is required over a long haul. We don't much like endurance."  Joni Erickson Tada

Where did God come from?

Where did God come from?  A question often asked by young and old alike.  "God is self-existent selfhood.  Novation, the church father said, "God has no origin" A W Tozer. Origin is a creature word and our God is no creature.  If God had origin, then He would logically be no different than us.  I am glad our God is unique and immutable.  He also became flesh and revealed Himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ.   “At the beginning You founded the earth; The heavens are the work of Your hands."  PSALM 102:25.