Sunday, December 31, 2006

O worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness Ps. 96:9

When I first thought of having my own blog, I have hesitated for many reasons. First, it is time consuming and I do not have much time left. I am very busy. Second, I did not want to share trivialities. Third, I am not very technically inclined and I am not familiar with HTML and all this stuff. Fourth, my mother tongue is french and I wanted to write it in English because my brothers and sisters of my church are English and I do not master English. But I have been encouraged by a brother that assured me that writing a blog is now easy.

The reason that decided me to go on was that I have been greatly blessed by some postings of brothers and sisters IN CHRIST that have a blog. I know that many christians are longing for holiness in their personal lives. My idea was to share knowledge and experiences to grow in holiness in a very practical and on a day-to-day basis. So, I began to read on the subject of holiness. I bought Stephen Charnock book "The existence and attributes of God" and read the section on holiness. I read my theology books on holiness and I searched the internet for articles on the subject.

Here are the first impressions I found:

1) the Bible teaches the INCOMPREHENSIBILITY of GOD. Psalm 145:3 says that "his greatness is unsearchable". To "comprehend" means to have a complete understanding of GOD. This is impossible for finite beings, including sinless angels. No matter how much about GOD we come to know, there will always be more to know about HIM;

2) the holiness of GOD is his crowning attribute;

3) we cannot really go in the right direction for our own holiness before we have elevated our minds to contemplate with the more accurateness that a man can attain the infinite, unspeakable, unsearchable HOLINESS of our GREAT, GREAT, GREAT LORD! And when you are there, your comprehension of the holiness of GOD is like a grain of sand compare to the universe, and even then, the grain of sand is infinitely too big! In one word, HIS HOLINESS knows no limits!

Here is the outline of how I intend to treat the subject:

We will begin by examining GOD'S HOLINESS:

1) GOD's holiness DEPRECIATED
(how our misapprehension affects our daily lives)

2) GOD's holiness DESCRIBED
(correct our false views about the grandeur of this attribute)

3) GOD's holiness DISPLAYED
(describe the holiness of the LORD in the Scriptures)

This part should take many postings.

We will do our best to exalt our views of GOD'S HOLINESS. After that, we will develop how we can grow in holiness in our own lives in very pratical ways.

It will be MAN'S HOLINESS:

1) man's holiness DELIMITED
(what is man's holiness, his possibilities, his limits)

2) man's holiness DEMANDED
(holiness is mandatory; "Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the LORD")

3) man's holiness DEMONSTRATED
(how holiness will manifest itself concretely in the daily lives of saints)

May the LORD open our eyes to the infinite greatness of HIS HOLINESS so that our sanctification may have the highest standards for HIS GLORY!

Marcel