HOLINESS

When God created the first man Adam, He did not intend for Adam to live a separate life, away from Him. Though Adam was a separate person, there was a seed in him that belonged to God. The life in him was the life of God. Wherever he went, he had the nature of God in him.   If Adam had remained plugged into God, he would have walked in a free flow of God’s Spirit, which would enable him to live a life full of the glory of God. The apostle John describes the glory of God as Grace and Truth.   And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)   This translates to the full love and authority of God.   God is life. The world needs life. God created man to be the connection between Himself and His creation. Like a tank of water which needs a tap to make its contents useful to those who need it, we were created to bring joy to God, as His children, and to be the tap through which God’s goodness can be enjoyed by His creation.   Scripture tells us that, after God created the mind-blowing heavens and earth, He created man in His own image and gave him dominion over the earth:   “So, God created man in his own image, in the image of God, he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day”. (Genesis 1:27-31)   God’s creation of man was a well-planned event. He was going to share His creation with His children. For the children to know more about creation, they needed to have the knowledge of God. This meant that they needed to learn from their father, without distraction. This required unbroken intimacy with God.   Because God’s children had been created with their own free will, it required their own determined choice to desire this intimacy with a holy God.   Holiness is our determination, in the face of the many distractions in the world, to separate ourselves to the holiness of our father, God.   God’s desire has always been to enjoy complete union with man, as they both enjoyed His creation together. He demonstrated this by the way He created man:   “Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature” (Genesis 2:7).   To breathe into man means, God released His entire life into man.   God’s joy is to see man enjoy creation to the full. The joy and appreciation of the child is the parent’s greatest joy. The love of God for His creation is guaranteed. God is love and He created everything out of love. The father can know the child’s love by how much the child shows appreciation to him. The father can also know the love of his children by how much they desire to spend time with him. Therefore, genuine worship from our hearts, is a joy to the Lord. A dedication to spending time in fellowship with God our Father, in prayer and worship, strengthens our union.