If somebody asked your best friend to describe you in one word, what word would they use? Is there one word that captures who you are? Maybe they would say, \u201cOh, he is funny.\u201d Does that mean you\u2019re funny all the time? No, there are probably times you are serious. You probably don\u2019t laugh through that many funerals. Or they might say, \u201cOh, she\u2019s spontaneous.\u201d Does that mean you\u2019re always spontaneous? There are probably a few things you plan for as well. The truth is, there\u2019s probably no single word that describes you. And that would be true about God as well. God is a number of characteristics. He is omnipotent: all-powerful. He\u2019s omniscient: all-knowing. He is immutable: unchangeable. Those are things that are true about God all the time. But even though those things are true about God all the time, there is no single word that sums up God. God is greater than all His attributes combined just as you are greater than all your attributes combined.<\/p>\n
But if we had to pick a single characteristic of God that transcends all others, it would be the word \u201choly.\u201d When the prophet Isaiah saw a vision of the Lord high and lifted up, he saw angels circling the throne of God and crying out, \u201cHoly, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory\u201d (6:3). It is interesting that the seraphim did not cry out, \u201cLove, love, love\u201d or \u201cJustice, justice, justice\u201d or \u201cOmnipotent, omnipotent, omnipotent.\u201d Instead the single attribute of God they cried out about was His holiness. Holy, holy, holy.<\/p>\n
What does the word \u201choly\u201d mean? It comes from a Hebrew word that means \u201cto cut\u201d or \u201cto separate.\u201d When we say God is holy, we\u2019re saying He is a cut above anyone in heaven or earth. When Isaiah saw the separateness of God, how did he respond? In Isaiah 6:5, he said, \u201cWoe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.\u201d The true God is different than any other god. Pagan religions picture their gods as participating in evil, but not the true God. Habakkuk said this about the true God: \u201cYour eyes are too pure to approve evil, and You can not look on wickedness with favor\u201d (1:13). God has zero tolerance for sin. We are so fallen as human beings we imagine ourselves to be more tolerant and loving than God is. We say, \u201cWhy can\u2019t God be accepting of people like we are? We hang around sinners, and we don\u2019t mind it. And we\u2019re able to overlook sin in our life as well as the sin in other people. Why can\u2019t God be more like that?\u201d Our ability to tolerate sin in ourselves and others is not a sign of our godliness; it\u2019s a sign of our ungodliness. We are comfortable with sin because we are sinners, but God is absolute purity and holiness, so He has no tolerance for sin of any kind. And it is that zero tolerance for sin that creates distance between God and us. God is not like we are. He is the one true God who is holy, who is different, and who can only be approached in one way. And the old way was one way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If somebody asked your best friend to describe you in one word, what word would they use? Is there one word that captures who you are? Maybe they would say, \u201cOh, he is funny.\u201d Does that mean you\u2019re funny all the time? No, there are probably times you are serious. You probably don\u2019t laugh through … Continue reading “12.m. This was a daily devotion from Pathway to Victory; 31 July 2020”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-prayers"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95340"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95343,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95340\/revisions\/95343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}