KNOWLEDGE OF THE HOLY

Time with Jesus - Saturday, 23 February 2013

Jim & Phyllida Strickland

Hi all,

Holiness. What is it? Our opinion is largely governed by our own ideas of something or someone who is unquestionably holy. Exactly what it was and why He or it is holy, remains a mystery.

The first time I came across what I thought was holy, was at school. I was 8 and in 1950, at Marist Brothers College in Bird Street, Port Elizabeth in Standard 1. The Marist Brothers were wearing a crucifix and their behaviour and reverence for this symbol, was easily communicated. It was not worn in a threatening way, to fill us with fear. They wore it respectfully and this was clearly something which was highly important to them. Not being a Roman Catholic, the “mystery of holiness” was not communicated to me in any way. For Christmas 1950, my parents gave me, among other things, a Bible. Before Christmas, they told me they were giving me a very special book. I couldn’t even guess it was a soft, cloth covered KJV Bible. To be quite honest, it was one of the very first times I was aware, there was something special about this book. I didn’t try to read it. The print was very small and the archaic language discouraged me from finding anything of the content.

The following year, 1951 I was at boarding school – Kingswood College in Grahamstown; in standard 2 with one or two other boarders. Four of us, all the same age, shared a small dormitory. My bed was next to the window, so my Bible went on the window-shelf. It remained there, comparatively unopened, for the entire year. For some reason, that Bible went with me wherever I lived, until today. In those very early days, if you had asked me why? I don’t think I could have given an answer! It was “part of me” in a way that it never occurred to me to question.

In 1960, in England, in the Bainbridge Methodist Church Hall, Heaton, Newcastle on Tyne, I responded to the altar call and “stumbled” into Christianity. Suddenly that 10 year old Bible became my inseparable friend. I suppose people would say, I thought the book was a sort of “good luck talisman”. To me it became a “holy” representation of the Christ I wanted to serve, for the rest of my days. I wrote in it. Learned passages from it and started to acquaint myself with its contents. The book was “holy” in the sense that it was my means of being in direct contact with my Lord and Saviour. It still is.

In the 1960’s and 70’s, the English speaking world produced several translations of the Bible. Many were greatly loved and still are. But when we turn to the KJV there is something that suggests, “This is Holy”.

For me, holiness has always had something to do with the presence of Jesus. I’m not sure I can define, or explain it. Sure, we can give a variety of excellent “definitions” of what holiness is. It’s mostly pure semantics. Holiness is the presence of the Living God in and around us; a presence that fills us with feelings of deep contentment. They are mixed with reverence for the “man” I have loved since Kingswood College days.  Sadly, we only met in 1960. His holiness scares me much as it did Peter some 2000 years ago. His burning love enfolds me such that I want to be with Him all the time. It’s a paradox. The One Who could snuff us out with a single word, actually wants us to love Him and be with Him. I suspect that even in heaven, this sense of reverential awe of His holiness, will be universal. He is our Father who loves us. Love and revere Him because He is HOLY!

Shalom,

Jim & Phyllida Strickland 

Matt 10:8 Freely you received, Freely give		Time with Jesus – Saturday, 23 February 2013			Matt 10:8 Freely you received, Freely give
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INTRODUCTION			DAILY LIGHT EVENING SCRIPTURES	Knowledge of the Holy
None of us can say we know God. Those who think they do are mistaken. God is unknowable because He is infinite. Everything He is, He is infinitely. He doesn’t have these “things”; He is these “things”. God does not have love. He is love. God doesn’t have mercy, He is mercy. Frankly, I don’t understand these “attributes”. I use the word “attributes” advisedly, because I have no idea how to describe the indescribable. God is unknowable. But here’s the paradox. He wants us to know Him! How does that work? What illustration can we use to describe Someone Who is unknowable; Who wants us to know Him? The closest I can think of, is a kitten and a Professor. The kitten will never know the Professor. The Professor knows that; but because He loves the kitten, he wants it to know him. The shortcoming with this description is that this is a creature dealing with another creature. Yes indeed, there is a huge gap between them. But the gap between the Creator and the Creature is infinite. It cannot be described. We live in a “Christian Society” which, by and large, has no fear of God. David Pawson states, that we have been taught to believe in the Father All-matey rather than the Father Almighty! Few of us have ever “trembled before the Lord”. He has become our “chum”. He has forgiven our sins, so we can now do anything we like. God has been taught as a benign, myopic old man, who wants us to come back to Him, no matter what we have done, or are still doing. Grace has been so exaggerated; there is no longer any penalty for sin in the lives of believers. The expression, “He knows what I’m like and He understands” seems to be a universal panacea for the wicked things we do. But it’s a delusion. He is just as angry about sin in a believer as He is in an unbeliever. In fact, He is angrier with a believer, because we are supposed to know better. In Proverbs we find: 10 "If you really want to become wise, you must begin by having respect for the LORD. To know the Holy One is to gain understanding. Pro 9:10 NIrV Today, there is a desperate need among Christians, to get to know the Father. This is based on the very limited knowledge He has given us about Himself. We will never be able to communicate with God and each other, until we have a basic idea of Who He is, what He allows, as well as what He will and will not tolerate. One of the best books I’ve read about knowing God is, “The Knowledge of the Holy” Written by Dr A W Tozer. ISBN 1-85078-621-6. Phyllida and I think it is among the greatest pieces of English literature on this topic. Buy a copy and become entranced with our wonderful God. Today’s meditation is about the Knowledge of our Holy God. Jim & Phyllida Strickland			11 Who can comprehend the power of Your anger? Your wrath is as awesome as the fear You deserve. Psalm 90:11 NLT 45 At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o'clock. 46 At about three o'clock, Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" which means "My God, My God, why have You abandoned Me?" Mat 27:45-46 NLT 6 We're all like sheep who've wandered off and gotten lost. We've all done our own thing, gone our own way. And GOD has piled all our sins, everything we've done wrong, on him, on him. Isaiah 53:6 MSG 1 Those who belong to Christ Jesus are no longer under God's sentence. 2 I am now controlled by the law of the Holy Spirit. That law gives me life because of what Christ Jesus has done. It has set me free from the law of sin that brings death. Rom 8:1-2 NIrV 1 We have been made right with God because of our faith. Now we have peace with him because of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through faith in Jesus we have received God's grace. In that grace we stand. We are full of joy because we expect to share in God's glory. Rom 5:1-2 NIrV 13 But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When He was hung on the cross, He took upon Himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree." Gal 3:13 NLT 9 God showed how much He loved us by sending His one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through Him. 10 This is real love--not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. 1 John 4:8-10 NLT 26 He waited so that he could display his approval at the present time. This shows that he is a God of justice, a God who approves of people who believe in Jesus. Rom 3:26 GW	We’d think that understanding God would be a piece of cake. We think we have Him figured out and so we seldom take, A look at the reality; that He is so much more, Than even in our wildest dreams we thought we could explore. The King of all Creation! We’ll never comprehend, A God Who loved us sinners, enough for Him to send, His only Son to come to earth and die “upon the tree” This sort of pure extravagance make’s little sense to me. The truth is, we dwell in Him. This universe of ours; The realm of Stars and Planets, of Suns, of Rain and Showers, Is somewhere deep within Him. Space isn’t infinite. He has control of all of it and all is in His sight. It seems a contradiction, that anyone so vast, Has time to even think of us. We’d surely be the last, That He would ever bother with. In fact we are so small, We’re not even a micro-dot, on some gigantic wall!. Of course, that is the problem. We think of time and space; And consequently, we dismiss all of the human race. We think we’re insignificant. So small we do not count. How can God ever find us? We’re sure that we amount, To something like a needle in a haystack universe; Who sinned and for that reason, the lot of us are cursed. So when we’re told of Jesus, we say, “Pull the other leg, We’ve fastened bells upon it, now we can go and beg. Who knows the One who made us? He’s left us all to rot, Upon this little planet that even He forgot.” Then, when we think of Jesus, we find reality. We know we have a Holy God who cares for you and me! A God who loves each one of us, more than we’ll ever know, Who knows all of the details, of how we come and go. A God who solved our problems, when we had no idea, We even had a problem! Our lot was far from clear. For size is unimportant. He sees a galaxy, Just as well as He can look at folk like you and me. In fact He sees us better, than all the stars that shine. A star can never love Him with a love like yours and mine And that is what He’s looking for; a loving, caring folk, Who always want to be with Him; and wear His pleasant yoke. Jim Strickland Written 23 February 2012