"God is love...God is light...God is holy.."
I was thinking recently how all these phrases come together. In the past my idea of God's holiness and the fact that He is Light ran along these lines: "He is so perfect that He doesn't want to be soiled by us dirty sinners." This idea didn't really make me feel I could approach God - it just seemed to make me feel more unworthy and despairing of ever being close to God.
But the reality is that God's holiness is so different than that! God's holiness doesn't have a connotation of judging and condemnation, of pointing out our faults. God's holiness has a connotation of attracting us to His love. Jesus was perfectly holy, and that holiness didn't repel people. It attracted the worst kinds of sinners and gave them hope. His holiness was the purity and perfection of love and grace!
He is holy - without any imperfection. All that He is - grace, love, joy, gentleness, goodness, peace, patience, self-control - He is all that perfectly, without an ounce of anything different. Think of having a person like that as your Friend; you would be drawn to such a person and feel totally at ease openly up to Him. You would be able to trust Him implicitly, knowing you would never be rejected by Him but only perfectly understood, cared for, and loved! As He shows me His love and grace, I see His holiness is beautiful, healing, attractive and freeing! It means that He is perfectly pure in all His attributes, perfectly and completely those things in all His relations with us:
He is kind in a perfect way, with no unkindness in Him!
He is patient with no impatience mixed in at all!
His compassion and goodness go all the way, and all He does all the time is in perfect compassion and goodness!
He is pure, unadulterated joy and peace, with no hint of displeasure or strife.
He is totally gentle, without one single speck of harshness!
He loves perfectly, is that way every time, without fail, without any unloving traits - ever! He loves without fault, without wavering, without stopping, without shortage.
He is holy in every way toward us - He is perfect love, peace, joy and grace - without fault or blemish or change!
There is no shadow of turning with Him. God has no "dark side," no shadowy part of His character. He is HOLY - He is 100% purely and completely who He is - Perfect LOVE, GRACE, JOY, and PEACE! That means He is 100% trustworthy for all our needs, for all our days...
