Time with Jesus - Saturday, 23 February 2013
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| 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
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Matt 10:8
Freely you received, Freely give |
Time with Jesus – Saturday, 23 February 2013
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Matt 10:8
Freely you received, Freely give |
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©
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These
devotionals are the intellectual property of Jim Strickland and copyright
protected. You are welcome to copy and distribute them to anyone provided it
is for non-commercial Christian purposes
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©
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INTRODUCTION
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DAILY LIGHT EVENING SCRIPTURES
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Knowledge of the Holy
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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
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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 |
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