Holy
4 Weeks Of Foundation • Day 3
God is 'holy.' This isn't a common word for us these days, so we might not have the best understanding of what it describes about Him, but it's really important! It means that He is entirely separate from everything and everyone else. There is literally no one like Him—not even close. But holiness also refers to His perfect goodness & moral purity. He has never sinned or failed and He has no weakness. His perfection means that He is completely opposed to everything that is evil. He cannot stand evil and does not let it go unpunished. He is always right and perfectly fair. We need to know that about God! Before Jesus, no one could come close to God; people couldn't see His face or come into His presence. He is holy and they needed to know WHO they were dealing with! You and I have no right to have any connection with such a perfect God either, except His holiness also provided a Way. We are sinners & God never lets sin go unpunished, but someone has already been punished for our sin... and that person is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Because God is completely fair, if we are believers in Jesus, then we will not be punished again. The price has already been paid! We can draw near to Him because of Jesus. We need to know how amazing God is...He is not like us or anyone else. He is holy. As you think about these verses today, let it form the right foundation of who God is in your heart.
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Then God gave the people all these instructions: “I am the LORD your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery. “You must not have any other god but me. “You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea. You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me. But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands.
Moses responded, “Then show me your glorious presence.” The LORD replied, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will call out my name, Yahweh, before you. For I will show mercy to anyone I choose, and I will show compassion to anyone I choose. But you may not look directly at my face, for no one may see me and live.” The LORD continued, “Look, stand near me on this rock. As my glorious presence passes by, I will hide you in the crevice of the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and let you see me from behind. But my face will not be seen.”
For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus. Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on obeying the law. It is based on faith. So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law.
And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.
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