God’s Holiness Compels Us To Do These Four Things

When your soul trembles before the infinite holiness of God, you are changed.  You experience “Holy Tremors.”  In previous weeks I have written on the powerful spiritual impact an awareness of God’s greatness has on our spiritual experience.   If you have not read those posts I encourage you to read The Power Of Living In Awe Of God and Five Things That Happen When You Experience God’s Greatness.

God’s Holiness

Here I will build on those previous posts by explaining…

Four Things That an Experience of God’s Holiness Compels us to Do…

1. Urgently repent of sin.  When Isaiah encountered the Holy Presence of God he cried out, “Woe to me!…I am ruined!  For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.” (Isaiah 6:5)  When he experienced God’s greatness, Isaiah could not escape the truth of his own sinfulness.  He was compelled to confess that sin and flee from it.

Recently I read the entire Bible through in just 6-weeks.  Never before had I done this.  As I read chapter after chapter of God’s revealed holiness throughout history, I was overwhelmed.  I could not escape my own sin and was compelled to confess the many ways I miss God’s mark.

The great news of repentance is the promise of God’s refreshing grace. (Acts 3:19)  For Isaiah, his confession was met with God’s mercy as a coal from the alter was applied to his lips symbolic of the fact that God had provided atonement.  When we experience God’s holiness, we tremble, we are shaken from our love for sin, and gloriously we encounter God’s forgiving grace.

2. Assume a posture of reverence.  In Isaiah’s encounter we see the angelic beings, seraphs, in a constant posture of reverence before God.  The Bible says, “with two wings they covered their faces.” (Isaiah 6:2)  These angelic beings were keenly aware of God’s greatness and understood their place before his divinity.  Because of this they continually experienced the power of being in the presence of the One who is “Holy, holy, holy.” (Isaiah 6:3)

Why do we not experience more of God?  We do not treat him with reverence and awe.  We bring him down to our level.  We try to make him our “good buddy.”  But he is not that.  He is the LORD!  If you experience him in his power you cannot help but choose a posture of awe.  O’ that we would live with a continuous commitment to reverence everything that is of God.

3. Position for service.  Before God’s greatness, Isaiah reported to duty.  He speaks to God offering him his very life.  He says those famous words that we should all offer to the Lord, “Here am I.  Send me!”  (Isaiah 6:8)

This is so wonderful.  Encountering the God infinitely greater than you opens up the door for your significance.  When you truly reverence God, it becomes the passion of your life to serve him.  Nothing is more powerful than to surrender to the service of the Great God who created you and has history in his hands.

Today, would you dare to look to the heavens and say, “Here am I.  Send me!”

4. Proclaim God’s Greatness.  The seraphs were unashamedly calling to each other about the greatness of God.  Isaiah begged to be sent out to proclaim that greatness to a culture that did not acknowledge God in reverence.  Why?  Because the greatness of God consumed the passion of these servants of the Lord.  O’ that this would become our motivation to proclaim the message of the Christ.  O’ that we would be compelled to proclaim his greatness to our children, neighbors, and the nations.

Experiencing “Holy Tremors” compels us to repent of sin, revere God in all things, position ourselves for service, and proclaim God’s Majesty.  May we become a people who tremble before God’s thunderous power.

Question:  What has an experience of God’s greatness compelled you to do with your life?  You can leave a comment by clicking here.