Reading The Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul has caused me to take a good, hard look at who God is and how truly amazing is His grace. As I look at my culture, especially at my generation, I see that arrogance is perhaps our greatest vice. We are not willing to admit that there may be anything fundamentally wrong, broken, or disparate in our thinking, in our ways of living. Therefore, the Gospel, which reveals our brokenness (and I might add, the solution), is a moot point. We have immediately closed off a philosophy that, if true, would change everything. All because we assume that we know best. 

The Gospel does not speak to perfect people, nor to those whose greatest desire is to blaze their own trails.

Personally, I have not escaped these tendencies towards assuming I know best and living my own way. I recognize that I am painfully slow to trust God.

So these bits of free-verse are laments of a culture of relative morality and humanistic arrogance. May God break through our stubborn hearts, help us remember His holiness, and guide us to a point of awe of His grace.

Arrogance
inspired by the books of Jeremiah and Lamentations, first-person, addressing God

for my own sake, I forsake you
because surely I know better,

having lived with myself my entire life
must amount to the sum of all knowledge and expertise.

what feels right
must be right–
but let’s not say, “there is no standard.”

I’m offended by your judgment;
enraged
by your intolerance

i refuse your “sinner’s welcome.”
you, “Creator”,
must welcome me as King.

Reverse roles, or else!

or else I will forsake you
for my own sake

let me wade in the blissful oblivion of self.

Holiness

Holiness desecrates
the ungodly–

and all is un-God,
save God Himself

why is holy so harsh (why not heal all wounds with hugs)?

vanity creeps into our souls,
wipes all wisdom
from our mayfly minds.

we are martyrs of our cause
bowing in ecstasy
to a relative
temporal
life.

drooling over crumbs and
denying the feast–

cradling comfort like a stillborn child

cursing a holy God
who desecrated Himself
so that enemies would know

the standard
the stakes
and the price paid for grace
that holiness we might begin
to understand