Unapproachable Light

 "Then Moses said, 'Please, show me Your glory.' And He said, 'I will make all My goodness pass before you. And I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you'.....But He said, 'You cannot see My face. For no man can see Me and live.' " Exodus 33:18-20...."He is..the King of kings and Lord of lords: who possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light." I Timothy 6:15-16...."The Bible reveals not first the love of God, but the intense, blazing holiness of God." Oswald Chambers

I am so thankful for the all powerful love of God. Love, that as the great old hymn says, "will not let me go." I'm thankful for His love that sought me when I had no desire for it. Love that kept me when all else seemed lost. Love that sustained and still sustains me in every part of my life. Love that took Jesus Christ to the cross. Love that died for me and that rose for me. Where would I be, would any of us who name Him as Lord be, were it not for His all consuming love?

Yet, I feel that we, His church have entered some extremely dangerous ground. I believe we have so overemphasized His love that we have cheapened His grace, His sacrifice, and above all, His holiness. I think we have lost our sense of His glory and majesty. We have made familiar, even casual, a God who does dwell in unapproachable light. We have tried to bring Him down to us, rather than Him lifting us up to Himself. In many ways, I fear we have made Him common. The Bible says that Moses spoke to Him as a friend, yet Moses could not look upon God because of His blazing and intense holiness that Chambers speaks of. I admit, even as I write, that I cannot begin to fully conceive of the intensity of His holiness and glory. Moses hungered to behold His glory. I have to ask, how deep is our hunger, yours and mine, to behold His glory? 

This is not an easy matter for me to write upon because the church has in so many ways misrepresented and misunderstood the holiness of God, and the resulting holiness of life that He commands of us. We have made it about behaviors and lists of do's and don'ts. We have made it about what takes place on the outside, and missed that He makes it all about what is taking place in our hearts, and through our hearts, our minds and entire being. His Word says that, "without holiness, no one will see the Lord." We think that means that we've got to get all our behavior in order. He means that we should allow our hearts to be fully aligned with His. We are transformed from the inside out, and with that transformation comes a total makeover in how we live. We have fallen in love with a holy God whose holiness in turn makes us holy. And our spiritual eyes are opened to behold Him.

I began this by talking about our overstressing His love and negating His holiness, and in turn, His command that we "be holy as I am holy." I think, in my own walk with Him, I first began to understand something of His holiness when I thought about those Scripture passages that invite us into His presence. I had taken that for granted, like it was my right to do so. I had little thought of His holiness and glory because I was focused on myself; what I wanted and needed from Him. The thought just came to me that what I needed to realize when I came to Him was just how unworthy I was to be in His presence. That was an insight from His Spirit, not mine. I was beginning to recognize His glory and holiness and how unholy so much of my life was. With that, everything began to change for me. That change continues to this day. The reality of His holiness should leave us speechless. It should result in abject worship. But does it?

Well, I've rambled on enough. Who can even begin to adequately explain or describe His holiness? Certainly not me, but I hope at the least this writing has made you more deeply consider it. To repent of any casual attitudes we've adopted towards Him, that are unworthy of Him. May we ceaselessly give Him the glory due His name....and may we never cease longing to behold His glory in ever deeper ways. He dwells in unapproachable light, yet in Christ, He is a most approachable Father God. I can't explain how that is. I can only rejoice that it is.

Blessings,
Pastor O