Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Holy, Holy, Holy

"But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: 'Be holy, because I am holy'" -1 Peter 1:15-16

This weekend The Navigators from our region (the Sunland) had a conference just outside of San Diego. There were between 250-300 students there and it was such a blessing to watch God work in everyone's life through the speakers, workshops, worship, and personal interactions.

Not that I wasn't expecting God to include me in that, but I went into the weekend with somewhat lower expectations that for previous years. God had already called me to serve on staff and was teaching me other things at the time, and this conference is for the students anyways, right? Wrong.

God rocked my world this weekend. Through a combination of the main message and the workshops I attended I really felt God speaking directly to me-and it all came together at church on Sunday night.

The verses from 1 Peter at the top of this blog quickly sum up the main message I felt God giving me this weekend: Be holy not because you are guilty or shamed or even legalistic, but because He is holy. For the past two weeks or so I'd been praying that God would continue to transform my heart and continue to give me the motivation to live for Him-I recognize that it's nothing that I can do alone and no one aside from the Spirit can effect that change within me. This weekend God placed more of that heart and motivation within me!

After hearing that message all weekend, I went to church Sunday night with some friends from Long Beach. Now, ROCKharbor is usually awesome, but the Spirit was clearly and evidently doing something powerful in that room Sunday night. The pastors themselves were kinda taken aback by it-they extended the opening time of worship in response to the way the Spirit was moving.

During worship at the end of the service, God moved again through that time-and spoke to me in perhaps the clearest way that I've EVER heard.  It wasn't the songs-I've sung "How Great is Our God" and "Awesome God" hundreds of times before. It was God revealing Himself to all of us at that gathering that night so powerfully.

In the middle of one of the songs I took a moment to acknowledge God and praise Him through adoration. I intended to just think the thought, "God, You are holy,"  praising God for who He is and humbling myself by exalting Him. God chose to interrupt.

I had only thought "God, You are---" when God spoke in what I can only describe as a low rumble that shook my very being: "I AM HOLY."

I was thunderstruck. I physically gasped-it felt as if I'd just been punched in the gut. For a split-second I was almost embarrassed, but then I reoriented my thoughts to God. What a blessing to have God speak so many ways and through so many people and then confirm and tie everything together so directly and powerfully! Praise be to Him and Him alone!


**A disclaimer: I'm a firm believer that God still speaks audibly to people today and that it isn't an "Old Testament thing." However, I am also very wary-how do we know it's from Him and not ourselves? One of the best ways that I know how to do that is to, as the Bereans did, examine the Scriptures yourself and see if it lines up with what it seems that God spoke. In this particular case, it's pretty easy: in numerous places, one being Leviticus 11:45, God says that He is a holy God. Even if it was "just" my own thoughts that the "I AM HOLY" thought came from, God can still use my own mind to speak to me. The Scriptures agree that He is a holy God, and that's enough for me :).**