Holiness Lost
The Bible tells stories about people who “experience” the actual presence of God, and in all cases, they fall down. They can’t help it. It’s not that God knocks them down. He doesn’t do that to innocent people. They fall down because He is holy. The Bible says that one day everyone who has ever lived will fall down before Jesus Christ. For some, it will come as a real shock. As Dallas Willard puts it, “Reality is what hits you when you’re wrong.” None of us is completely right in our view of God, and we are perhaps most wrong in our mis-understanding of his holiness. We human beings lost our view of what holiness is in the beginning when our first parents decided to turn away from Him and take His place of authority in their lives. And we, as their individual offspring, have affirmed their decision, making ourselves our own gods, bowing to our own self-interest in place of the One who deserves worship—the one Who is the source of life. ...