Dangerous Questions: A 5-Day Reading Plan by Brenna BlainSýnishorn

Day Three: Transformed by Holiness

Many of us assume God cannot tolerate our mess. After all, God is holy, and humans are bent toward sin. To be holy is to be without fault or failure, completely sinless. God is the only perfect being in existence, the only Holy One.

That’s why, when the prophet Isaiah received a vision in which he was in the Lord’s presence, he cried, “Woe to me! . . . I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips . . . and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty” (Isaiah 6:5).

Then came a bizarre twist: an angel took a coal from the altar and touched Isaiah’s lips, saying, “Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for” (v. 7).

When unholy Isaiah encountered the holy God and an angel of God cleansed him, holiness was transferred to the unclean. This was a picture of the new, mind-blowing possibilities Jesus would bring to humanity.

Throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus said that people could be with God, not by performing sacrifices or adhering to the law perfectly, but through Him: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

What a massive shock this would have been to those who came from generations of temple-centered people! Sacrifices, rituals, and rules at the temple had been their way of life for many generations. Then Jesus became the last sacrifice.

When Jesus died on the cross, the curtain that had held back the presence of God from the people was torn in two. The holy was coming to the unholy. (See Matthew 27:50-51.)

The man Jesus made an exchange. The physical structure of the temple was no longer God's primary dwelling place. He would build a new temple—not as a place but as a people.

You and I experience the brokenness of this world daily. We hurt, we hunger, we tire, we have limits. But these aches do not negate what Christ has said, what God has done, or where the Holy Spirit inhabits. In fact, in radical resistance against the evils at work, God finds a way to use our brokenness to bring us, time and time again, back to holiness.

Response:

What brokenness in you would like God to use to bring you closer to Him?

Prayer:

Holy God, I am in awe of Your ability to bring holiness into my brokenness. Help me to see Your hand at work in my life and to trust in Your redemptive power. Use my pain to draw me nearer to You. Amen.