Fearing God-Holiness according to Tozer and Lewis

I've been spending a few post talking about God's holiness.

A.W Tozer seems to have written a lot about the holiness of God. This quote helps me to dig into God's holiness in a fuller way--

"Holy is the way God is. To be holy he does not conform to a standard. He is that standard. He is absolutely holy with an infinite, incomprehensible fullness of purity that is incapable of being other than it is. Because he is holy, all his attributes are holy; that is, whatever we think of as belonging to God must be thought of as holy."  

A.W Tozer

This really challenges me not to ignore God's holiness, but to consider it and discipline myself into knowing God as a Holy God. Tozer is telling us that we can't even consider God's love, His peace, or any part of Him without putting it through this filter of His holiness. I know that I don't naturally do this because when I ask myself what it means that God is Holy, the concept still seems foreign and vague. But without grasping and internalizing His holiness, I will never fully get His other attributes.


And lastly CS Lewis said this about holiness:

"How little people know who think that holiness is dull. When one meets the real thing, it is irresistible”

I think I worry that the opposite of this statement is true. That God's holiness is stuffy and will bore me, but that isn't true. That is false thinking. True holiness is intriging and refreshing!

How well do you know the Holiness of God?

Fearing God-Holiness (Mother Teresa and Dirty Robes)

I've been thinking about what it means to fear God. Isaiah 6 is helping my heart to understand the God whom invites me to fear Him, and yesterday I talked a bit about the first attribute of God that we see in the passage, God's Holiness, and how that holiness draws me closer to Him.

But this holiness makes me pause as well. When I really consider it, think about a God who is completely different, wholly other-I am humiliated (in the best idea of the word).

I can't love like He loves. I always will love others because I want something in return. I will always think about my own self-interest in a relationship. I can strive to be like Him, but in the end the best of me doesn't even get close to comparing to His greatness.

The passage illustrates this in verse one. It says that Isaiah sees the Living God on a throne, and the train of His robe is filling up the temple. The temple was the best that Israel had to offer. It's beauty and glory brought people from all over the ancient world to see it. It was the a high point in the history of the people of God-a place where they were the obedient and generous in their constructing God's dwelling place on earth.

And the train of God's robe easily fills it up.

The train of a robe is the lowest part of the garment, and subsequently when you are imagining someone garbed in a robe with a train, the train is the lowest point of that person. Dragging on the ground, getting dusty. See the idea with this image. The "lowest" part of God is so far beyond the best part of Israel that it fills it up, consumes it with His glory.

I think about the best that modern Christianity has to offer and I think about Mother Teresa. I'm having a love affair with her right now. Everything I read about her fascinates and challenges me. She understood what it meant to know Jesus and that deep and real knowledge pressed her to care for the poorest of the world's poor. And still the amazing Mother Teresa comes no where close to the hem of God's glorious robe.

Who are your hero's of faith? Billy Graham? Elizabeth Elliot? Jim Wallis? The best of the best. But when compared to the Best that is God all that we have to offer is consumed by His best-ness.

I can see why Paul said that the best parts of himself, of all of us, are basically crap. Because compared to a HOLY God-well you can't compare anything to a Holy God, there is no comparison.

And that is humiliating. That gives me perspective. That calls me to respect and reverence.

"Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty

and the whole earth is full of His Glory"

Fearing God-Holiness (The Good News)

A passage of scripture that is helping me cultivate a fearful and reverent heart toward God is Isaiah 6.

 ¹ In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. ² Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. ³ And they were calling to one another:
   “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
   the whole earth is full of his glory."

Here we see one of the main descriptors of God in the Bible-Holy.

But what does it mean that God is Holy?

The "holy" used to describe God means "set apart" or I think of it as "wholly other", completely different. And this is actually a great thing about God, one that draws me more fully into His embrace.

All the junk that goes here, all the things that happen to me that I hate. All the drama I end up in that I want free from, all the ways that people break me and I break others. God is wholly above that. He is completely different. He doesn’t approach me to use me for His own advantage. He doesn’t try to consume me for Himself, and He doesn’t hold a grudge against me for all the ways I’ve screwed up. He is set apart from all that. 

He is wholly other, set so apart from us and our world, that we don't have to worry about Him abusing us the way others here have abused. When we think of His fatherhood (especially if we have had lousy fathers) we can press into the fact that He is a wholly different, a completely perfect Father, and we can rest in this bold and new Fatherhood. That His holy Love is completely different that any love I've experienced. Being in a relationship with Him is so wholly refreshing because I'm not having to wade through His junk, his insecurities. He is Holy, set apart, completely different, and His holy love is freeing to my soul.

How does thinking about God (His love, His peace, His hope) as wholly other bring you refreshment and freedom?

Fearing God- A Quote

"The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge"

                 Proverbs 1:7                          

As I was reading about fearing God, I came across this quote:

“ that mingled fear and love which, combined, constitute the piety of man toward God; the OT places its emphasis on the fear, the NT...on the love, though there was love in the fear of God’s saints then, as there must be fear in their love now” (Vine's Expository Dictionary quoting Trench's New Testament's Synonyms-pg 230).

Love and fear have always been connected. They've always worked together to make us into whole people. Together (and only together really) our love for God and our reverent fear of Him press us toward His fullness and toward our good and right end—our ultimate goal-being made like Christ. 

Somewhere along the way we stopped allowing these two to be mingled. We want to focus more on the loving nature of our relationship with God, and not on the qualities of God that demand our profound respect. And that produces an arrogant people. Because without fear, we begin to think that God's love and mercy, His Grace, is our right. Without a healthy understanding and practice of Fearing God, we start acting entitled in our sin, annoyed in our suffering, lazy in our service. 

I experienced this over the past week. My home group at church is studying peace and what it means to really know peace with God and experience the peace of God. Romans 5 is one of the places we've been camping out. "Therefore since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand." vs 1-2

To have peace now means we were once at war with God. Tim Keller puts it like this: 

"When we disobey God, there are two things that happen. You not only break His law, but you assume the right or authority to do so; you claim kingship over yourself and your world. But God claims kingship over the same thing. Whenever two parties claim absolute (kingly) control over something, there is war."

How does this apply to fearing the Lord?

When I read about my peace with God, my gut reaction is this, "You bet there's peace with me and God! He is loving. He loves me. Christ died so I could be reconciled to Him. He has to be at peace with me." To get the full effect you need to imagine me saying that with a slightly smug, slightly annoyed look on my face. 

In my gunked up heart, I feel I have a right to peace with God because He is loving. But when I press myself toward fearing the Lord, toward this other, bigger understand of Him, then I am humbled and overwhelmed by this peace I have with God. I am deeply grateful to my big brother, Jesus, who ended the war between me and my good King. I am brought to the throne and I worship with tears and joy.

Fearing God-The Definition

"The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge"

 Proverbs 1:7                              

Yesterday, I wrote about what fear of the Lord is not.  That post begs this post.

What does it mean to fear God?

There are two Hebrew words used when writers talked about this fear in the Hebrew Bible (our Old Testament). One means "the fear of being before a superior kind of being. Usually it is used to describe the reaction evoked in men by God's mighty works of destruction and sovereignty." The other communicates a reverence. (Vine's Expository Dictionary, pg 80)

Reverence here is the ticket, and I think that most of us would quickly come to this word when talking or answering questions about what it means to fear God.

But I don't know that I really understand what reverence means.

Merriam-Webster defines reverence as a "profound adoring awed respect." 

So fearing the Lord is a deeply humbled worshipful respect of Who God is and what He can do. Holy reverent fear produces a quiet heart not a worried one. It makes us knell and produces gratefulness and peace. This type of fear can also hold us back from sin. It can make us tremble, not because we are scared, but more because we are overwhelmed with how GREAT our God is.

This definition makes me wonder who and what I do revere. Who's life, who's presence, who's work makes me feel adoration and respect. How often do I feel this when I'm spending time with God? Is this reverence rooted in my love for Him?

What do you revere? What humbles you about Who God is?

Fearing God-The Blame Game

We had a rough week here at the Simmons Spot.

Joshua's job has changed and the transition has been rough for the kids and the mom, and the dad.

This has especially shown up in Cecilia's behavior at school. She has had several bad days, a note home, and some email exchanges between her teacher and myself.

When Cecilia and I were talking about what was behind this bad (and out of character) behavior, she said this, word for word: "Well Mom, I hate to say this, but it's really your fault that I had such a bad day. YOU are the one who let me stay up late, and that is why I was bad."

Now just to clarify. I did let her stay up 45 minutes later than normal. The night before had been the only night in the week where Joshua was home. So I let the kids stay up to spend time with their Dad. I stand behind the choice that time with her Dad was more important that getting to bed on time.

Her statement instantly reminded me of others.

"Well, I hate to say it, but the woman YOU gave me caused this mess!"

"Well, I hate to bring it up, but the serpent YOU created tricked me."

"Well, it's awkward to harp on it, but the wilderness YOU led us into is just too hard, the people YOU have brought us up against are just too mighty, the gods in the land that YOU brought us into are just too inciting."

And so on it goes through the history of the Hebrew people and on into the early church and right up into my life.

"Well God, if YOU would just give us more income, we would give more away."

"Well, I don't bring this up often, but YOU are the one who made me unorganized. It was YOUR idea to make me a verbal processor."

"Well I wasn't the one who knit these little ones together God. That was all YOU. I mean can YOU blame me for yelling."

And it goes on and on.

But blaming God points me to the thing I've been writing about in the past few posts. It points to my lack of fear. I might blame someone I was afraid of, but I would not dream of blaming my junk, my limitation and my sinfulness on a ruler whom I deeply feared. Whom I fearfully loved. Whom I REALLY and fearfully knew.

Why do you think YOU blame God when you fall short?

Fearing God-The Invitation

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge"

Proverbs 1:7

In my last post I wrote about my need to grow in the area of fearing the Lord. This actually hit me square in the face when a friend issued an invitation to me.

This part of knowing God-the fearing part- is really hard for me to connect to.

I follow God because of His love for me, His closeness and intimacy. I was won to Him because through scripture, my InterVarsity staff, and some crisis moments, He convinced me that He knew me, the real me. That He saw through all the masks I had put up, all the "good deeds" that others saw. He saw straight into the REAL LEE. The junked up, gross, ugly Lee and He loved her. He saw beauty. He saw glory. He saw what I could be in Him.

And I was won. I was forgiven and changed. Devoted to the God who loves me so completely, even though He knows all there is to know about me.

Back to fearing the LORD. 

Recently I hit into this problem area of fearing God. I was studying scripture with other IV staff and the passage was highlighting some of God's more severe qualities. I was skimming, annoyed waiting for the questions to swing back to grace and love. This posture of mine troubled me, so I asked a friend to talk about it. I told him about my lack of fearing the Lord. My annoyance with the topic when I came across it in scripture. And my honest distress that this is who I was.

This was his response:

"You know Lee, God won you by knowing you completely and still loving you perfectly. I think it is time for you to return the favor." 

And I agree with Him. It is time for me to return this gracious favor.

Time to know God better. 

Fearing God-The Confession

It is about 6 o’clock on a chilly morning. I am awakened all of the sudden for no apparent reason, and as I’m trying to settle down to go back to sleep, I hear the Lord’s invitation to get up and pray with Him. I look at the clock, consider the chill, and as I’m rolling over I say, “Sorry God, why don't you come back in 30 minutes, we'll pray then.” I drift back to sleep.

Rewind about a year and I’m standing in my new church having just taken communion. The week had been really hard. A crisis of faith had left me feeling worn thin and bruised. The pastor of my church gets up and says, “Sometimes taking communion can cause some intense things to come up. If you need to, the elders will be off to the side to pray with you.” As he spoke I felt the Lord's invitation again, “You should go and get prayer, you’ve had a tough week.”

I considered the suggestion a moment and then responded, “Nah, that’s ok. I don’t need to.” He gently encouraged me again to get prayer, “Nope. I really don’t think I need to.” 

Then He got firm. “Go And Get Prayer.” 

To which I literally crossed my arms over my chest and said, “I AM NOT GETTING PRAYER.”

These two stories (and many others) are like red flags in my life. Places of distress or indicators that things are not as they should be. These two stories point to a very serious  problem.

I do not fear the Lord. 

Some one who tells the all powerful God to come back when it suited their schedule, does not have a healthy understanding of who God is. Someone who would casually and obstinately cross their arms and tell God "NO"-the same God that created said person, that redeemed said person and that could END said person-that someone needs to consider what a healthy fear of the Lord looks like.

Proverbs 1:7 tells me that, "The FEAR of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge." 

I want to learn to fear the Lord. And even though I'm anxious about this part of God, I want to know the God that deserves my fear.