Close The Gap Between You And God By Pete BriscoeSample

Getting A Glimpse Of God’s Holiness

Greedily she engorged without restraint, And knew not eating death. — John Milton, Paradise Lost

You have to admit, the Bible starts out pretty darn sweet. In a flash, God creates everything from nothing. It’s so good that He calls it, well, “good.” After He creates a man and a woman to live in it, He actually calls it “very good.” In short, there was God, His perfect world, and a man and woman walking together with Him in perfect unity. 

This was Eden. 

It lasted for a good three pages. 

When the man and woman chose to doubt what God said and chose instead to believe the deception of the serpent, this perfect world was thrown into complete crisis. Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden. One of their sons murdered their other son. Insurance rates went way up. The stock market crashed. The consequences were all over the place—and all of these consequences emerged from one central, fundamental problem:

Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. For your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt. Your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue mutters wicked things. (Isaiah 59:1-3)

This, indeed, is the central crisis of the Great Story: A perfect and holy Creator is separated from the creatures He loves because of their choice to live independently of Him, because of the barrier of sin between them. 

Have you recently pondered the full consequences of sin separating humans from our holy God?

Jesus, by the power of Your Spirit and the description of Your Holy Word, allow me to imagine the great gulf that existed between You and me before my redemption. Give me a glimpse of Your staggering holiness. Give me this bigger picture so that I can more fully celebrate the incredible things that you accomplished on the cross. Amen!