“Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.” (Psalm 29:2) It is easy to have a bad perception about holiness. Many times when the word is used in the context of faith, it carries the baggage from those who think holiness is about external clothing, antiquated hairstyles, no make-up, no jewelry, or no tattoos. Religion focuses on externals, externals, externals. Jesus came and turned the religious universe upside down because He flipped the focus to the internal. He constantly spoke about the heart of man—his attitudes, unforgiveness, pride and aloofness to those suffering.
As the carpenter from Galilee, Jesus built a new model of walking in holiness. He demonstrated how to love the unlovable, how to reach out to the lepers, how to heal the broken-hearted, how to humble ourselves down to the outcasts, and how to save those trapped in sin. As the Christian artist Phil Cross sings, “Jesus took 3 nails and two pieces of wood and built a bridge.”
When we walk in the ‘beauty of holiness,’ we will build bridges also. Bridges to reach all the outcasts broken people of society. We will be the hands of Christ to break through the religious perceptions about Christianity and take Jesus to them in the spirit of humility. There are two great lies embraced by modern religion. First, that you can’t love others and speak truth, and second, that you can’t speak truth in love. We can—Jesus did and through the Holy Spirit we can too.
The beauty of holiness is not trying to wear people out with ‘going to church’ 4 nights a week or being on ‘another committee.’ Many of our churches are so busy ‘doing’ church activities that we have failed to ‘be the church’ to those who are broken in our midst. We must stop thinking that busy activities for God is a viable option for intimacy with God. Religion functions out of the abundance of structure organized by man. Christianity functions out of inward purity and holiness before the Lord. Holiness is the moral purity of God that compels us into the internal relationship with our Risen Savior and launches us into the lives of those around us. It is beautiful and gracious, compassionate and long-suffering, tender and truthful.
Next time we think about holiness, let it not get clouded by religious perceptions involving bondage and legalism. Let us not think external, but rather internal. Let us trust Jesus as the only one who can purify our hearts and motives, and empower us to extend ourselves to those who are broken by the world, and by sin, and by failure. Out of the love of Christ within us, let us be the hands of Jesus to them. Through all the blood, sweat and tears, let our actions be a living invitation for others to come to Christ and experience the fountain of worship that flows from…the beauty of holiness!
