Praising God for His Holiness

We are commanded to give praise and thanksgiving to God. There are many places throughout the Scriptures where we are commanded to do so. Many times King David, in his Psalms, tells us to proclaim God’s greatness. One such place is found in Psalm 70:4 which says, “Let those on the hunt for You sing and celebrate. Let all who love Your saving way say over and over, ‘God is mighty!’” (The Message) We who are followers of God are to say over and over and in many different ways just how great the Lord is.

So I focus a part of my daily time with God, usually after reading the Bible, on praising and worshiping and giving thanks to God. I try to spend about 10 minutes just acknowledging God for who He is and in adoration of His awesomeness. My words are meager and no matter what words I use, I find that I’m often at a loss for the words that truly describe how great God is. I try every day anyway.

Sometimes I find myself repeating certain phrases, especially phrases I’ve read in Scripture of others giving praise to God. In my recent study of Revelation, there are several places where it talks about God being holy, holy, holy. I asked myself why it repeated the word three times. I found that when something is repeated in the Bible it usually means we should take note. In this case my research suggested that repeating something three times indicates perfection. So, God is perfectly holy. But what does holy mean?

Holy means something is derived from a divine power. It means something is blessed, pure, perfect, sacred, pious, moral and upright. God is all those things and so much more. He is the definition of holy. When we say, “Holy, holy, holy God” we are saying that He is perfect and moral and upright in every conceivable way. He is the epitome of holiness and perfection. We are declaring that God is perfect and upright and does everything with total perfection.

Explaining holiness is a tough act. Describing what holiness is is like trying to describe God. In many ways it is impossible for us mere humans to do it. But, we can say the words and proclaim His holiness, trying to wrap our heads around what it means. Doing this is a way of praising God. It’s just one word that describes God’s attributes. He is truly holy, holy, holy – perfectly pure and without blemish or fault. He is God. He is holy.