The Beauty of Holiness

Psalm 29
2 … worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.

• The beauty of Holiness is Jesus Christ! He is the fulfilment of The Law! He the Altogether Lovely One. HIS Life fulfils The Law, HIS Life abhors sin, HIS Life loves, serves, obeys, surrenders and trusts The Father! It is HIS Life within the believers who are clothed with HIS righteousness that worships The Lord in the beauty of holiness.

Psalm 93:5
“…Holiness adorns Your house, O LORD, forever.”

• Holiness adorns those with whom He dwells, those who are His living temples. People altogether set apart unto Him, circumcised of heart, abhorring evil and loving His Word, allowing HIS Life and HIS Love to flow through them. Holiness is utterly dependant and completely yielded to The Father, filled with His Holy Spirit and so naturally produces HIS fruit!
• Holiness is rooted in Christ’s humility. It is a life of faith naturally producing works/fruits of faith. It is Christ within, living through, who is demonstrated in the way that the believer lives. Holiness is the fruit of His life, it can be mimicked by legalism but the beauty of holiness is Christ only and always!

Revelation 4
8 …and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.

• I cannot try to convey or explain the Holiness of God but it is amazing to meditate on. The word holy, at its root, means set apart. Truly our God is altogether set apart from creation! He is altogether above and beyond anything man can grasp or imagine! He is altogether Sovereign over all things, He is Light, He is Truth, He is without spot or blemish, He is The One True Living God! 
• This is holiness and we are to worship The Lord in the beauty of that holiness. Jesus only is the beauty of holiness! How absurd it is to think that we could produce any kind of beauty through self effort in the flesh! However, “through faith”, through faithful obedience God’s Word and faithfully abiding in Him, The Spirit of God through our flesh produces the fruit, the beauty of Christ’s Holiness, HIS Life, His Heart, His Testimony! Hallelujah!
• Legalism tries to mimic holiness but is rooted in pride and the elevation of flesh. It works hard to maintain standards addressing the appearance of the outward man. It focuses on the letter and on the keeping of laws in self and corporately in others. It is strife, contention, prejudice and pride. There is a great temptation to teach the law, it often produces quick results, but it does not produce Life. It is flesh breeding flesh and will only produce death!
• Legalism is pride in the flesh and pride, like bad body odour, can sometimes be hard to detect in ourselves but surely stinks to others! Here are some considerations to help identify/discern our hearts.

• May our lives be marked by HIS holiness, by HIS love that fulfils the law, not the flesh which strives to keep it. May we be vessels for the outflowing of HIS LIFE and the fruit of HIS SPIRIT! May we tend to our own root and trust The Holy Spirit to produce HIS Fruit in us and others. It is HIS LIFE so serve The Lord in the beauty of submission to HIS Life! 

Galatians 2
18 For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.
19 For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God.
20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
21 I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”