The Trinity and Holiness

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” (A. W. Tozer). How do we see God? If we see him inaccurately, we may be afraid to approach him. Let’s look at some things we may believe, but shouldn’t:

If we sin, God can’t allow us to come into his presence.

False. If we are followers of Christ, God sees us as holy because Jesus paid for our sins. God invites us to come to him boldly as a child would approach a loving Father. Being holy is not our ticket into his presence, but as we spend time there, we find that we actually do become more holy.

God demands perfection of His followers.

Not true! God is perfect, but he knows his kids. We are weak and we fall down a lot. He loves us anyway and asks us to come, mud and all, so he can gently wash us clean. No perfection required, just a willingness to keep returning to our Father.

God can’t use us if we have some big sin in our past.

Again, false. Most often the failures of our past are our best preparation for a useful future. Whatever comes into our lives, good or bad, God will use for his glory if we submit it to him. Our God-redeemed failures become our greatest assets.

We can’t be holy on our own. Most of us have tried that and failed. Our holiness comes only through the Triune God. John Owen, whom we have been following in these blogs, says it this way: “. . . the Holy Ghost tells us that Christ has consecrated, dedicated, and set apart for that purpose, ‘a new and living way’ into the holiest of all (Hebrews 10:20); a new one, for the first, old one was useless; a living one, for the other is dead; therefore, he says ‘Let us draw near’ (v. 22); having a way to walk in, let us draw near. And this way that he has prepared is no other but himself (John 14:6).*

We shouldn’t accept everything we have come to believe. We need to keep going back to the source of truth: the Bible. There we will find a loving, compassionate, forgiving God who is crazy happy that we want to be with him.

John Owen, Communion with God (Ross-Shire, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2007), p. 175.