Because God is Holy

Fire is the great purifier. It destroys everything in its path. It burns off impurities. And it leads to new life. A fire might burn an entire forest to the ground, yet it's heat releases seeds inside of pine cones, and new trees come to life the following season. 

Bill and Vonette Bright lived through the San Bernardino wildfires of 1980 that took homes in the California. Long before that fire, Bill and Vonette had settled ownership of their possessions and their plans for their lives. Knowing that their sins had been forgiven, they wanted to trust God to live in and through them for the rest of their lives. 

Holy can be defined as set apart from sin, and set apart to do the work of God. Because Christ died on the cross to forgive our sins, we can approach a holy God. God judges sin. He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah with fire. 

Our response, like Isaiah, in chapter 6, is to worship God. “Holy, holy, holy,” the prophet declared three times, “is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory.” Then the earth shook and Isaiah declared, “Woe is me. I am a man of unclean lips.” 

An angel touched Isaiah's lips with a burning coal and declared that his guilt had been taken away. In the same way, Christ’s death on the cross takes our guilt away, allows us to enter God’s presence and even to become holy as He is holy. 

As a response to God’s holiness, during the early years of their ministry with Cru (formerly known as Campus Crusade for Christ). Bill and Vonette signed a contract with God. The contract was their way of settling once and for all that Christ was in charge of their lives. 

Watch Vonette explain how that contract came to be and the difference it made in her life, in Bill’s life and in their marriage and ministry: The Contract

Questions

1. 1 Peter 1:16 reads, “God Himself has said, you must be holy because I am holy.” Is this possible? What do you think Peter meant when he wrote it? 

2. When Isaiah saw God’s holiness, how did he respond? If you were to be holy as Christ is holy, what would first be required of you? 

3. Are you practicing holiness in your relationships? Can you be trusted? 

4. Our response to God’s holiness is to worship Him. Our culture gives us plenty of other things to worship. What are some of those things? 

5. How can you devote yourself to God in worship and service this week? 

6. If you wrote a contract with God, what items might you include in it? 

Meditate on this truth and memorize it:

Because God is holy, I will worship Him in spirit and in truth.