Is this what God is like?

When we read about God’s Mercy and Israel’s Unfaithfulness in Isaiah 43 it is apparent that God will bring Israel to her knees because her people refuse to give glory to where it should be ascribed. In verse 20 & 21 we find God calling Israel the people He formed for Himself for the purpose of giving Him praise.

20 The wild animals honor me,
the jackals and the owls,
because I provide water in the desert
and streams in the wasteland,
to give drink to my people, my chosen,

21 the people I formed for myself
that they may proclaim my praise.

We typically associate giving ourselves glory with being arrogant.  Does it make you feel uncomfortable that God seeks His own Glory?

When you continue to read through scripture we find that God’s primary M.O. is His glory.  (1 Samuel 12:22, 1Peter 2:9, Psalm 50:15)

Early in his pursuit of God, C.S. Lewis reasoned that a God that would say “Praise Me!, Praise Me!, Praise Me!” was insecure and weak.   In his words,  ”like a vain woman who wants compliments.”

Lewis would later reason, It is wrong for anyone or anything else in the universe to command praise of itself, because nothing deserves that praise. Nothing, that is, except God. He’s right to demand the praise and glory of the universe because it rightfully belongs to Him.  He is the only one truly worthy of glory, God is our creator and sustainer.  The glory of God is the end game of our existence and of history itself.

10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:10-11)

So to go back to our original thought.

Let’s face it the reason that that guy gets on our nerves is that we, at times, what to be the center of attention.  I think we transfer this to our view of God as well.  We would like to see ourselves as the center of His universe.  We would like to think that God’s exists to bless us.  While it is true that He want to bless His kids, we exist to bring Him glory in all things.   God on the other hand, well He is the center of the universe and all glory and honor an praise belongs to Him. Our job is to give it to Him.

So what is Glory to you??

We refer to glory most often as the credit that is deserved.  -recognition, honor, respect

Where do you ascribe glory?

This is a word that often gets misused…you know how it goes Holy________.  (You pick what you want to fill in the blank.)

So how do we define holy?

Classically Holy is defined as being SET APART therefore To be “holy” is to be separate. Other. Set apart. The word sums up everything that makes God who He is—unique from everything and everyone else.

Take a look at three places in scripture that speak to the Holiness of God…(find them and read them)

We find the angles in Isaiah 6 calling holy to one another as God sits upon his throne.  By calling God “holy” three times, the seraphim were pointing to the absolutely essential and foundational nature of God’s holiness. They didn’t chant “loving, loving, loving” or even “glorious, glorious, glorious.” They opted for “holy.” Therefore, in order to understand a bit of who God is, we must start with this characteristic.  The reason we start with Holy is because this word sets the stage for all of His other attributes.  He is so other, so holy that this is the filter we must view his love, justice, mercy, or even wrath.  They are unlike anything that we have ever experienced because they are with out spot or blemish they are completely pure, something that we cannot begin to fathom.

Take the temple for example; When God gave instructions to build the temple in Exodus 25 and the chapters following He was very specific in regard to how the temple should be constructed as well as how He should be approached there. Why all the red tape and regulations. It’s because He is so holy—so other—that His holiness is very, very restrictive. One didn’t just barge into the presence of God. There was a protocol to be followed, if not out of reverence, then out of self-preservation.

In 2Samuel 6 we see God’s commitment to His Holiness in the unfortunate story of the arks return to the temple and Uzzah’s fatal touch. God had commanded His people with very specific instructions on how to move the Ark of the covenant from place to place, which included that no one was to ever touch the ark. Unfortunately for Uzzah these instructions were not being followed and when the Ark began to fall off and ox cart and he reached to keep it from falling He was struck dead.  How is that for commitment?  No questions asked…God spoke, they didn’t follow, Uzzah dies.  We, like the rest of the crowd that, might look at what happened and conclude that God flew off the handle a little bit. After all, Uzzah wasn’t trying to desecrate the ark. If anything, he was trying to protect it. But God had instructed the people not to touch the ark, and a holy God means what He says. Uzzah disobeyed, and God rewarded him with death.

What does this look like for us today?  Our reaction to that story puts into sharp focus how we treat the holiness of God with little regard. In an over-churched, over-marketed, and over-saturated Christian subculture, is it possible that we’ve become too familiar with the holy? Are we too comfortable with things we were never meant to be comfortable with? Do we operate with this view of God’s Holiness?  Do we see Him as set apart?  Or do we view Him as our God next door?

So how do you define Holy?

*portions taken from Holy Vocabulary