9 August

Three Levels of Greatness

Our magazines and TV screens are filled with stories of the rich, the beautiful and the strong. Our culture places these things on a pedestal and many of us aspire to achieve them. There is nothing wrong with these things – but they are not everything.

The French philosopher, Blaise Pascal, spoke of three orders of greatness. Riches, beauty and strength fall into his first category of superficial ‘physical greatness’.

Above this is a higher, second level of greatness. It is the greatness of genius, science and art. The greatness of the art of Michelangelo or the music of Bach or the brilliance of Albert Einstein – these stand way above superficial physical greatness.

However, according to Pascal there is a third kind of greatness – the order of holiness. (And there is an almost infinite qualitative difference between the second and the third categories.) The fact that a holy person is strong or weak, rich or poor, highly intelligent or illiterate, does not add or subtract anything because that person’s greatness is on a different and almost infinitely superior plane. It is open to every one of us to become great in the order of holiness.

The word ‘holy’ (hallowed, holiest, holiness) appears over 500 times in the Bible. God is holy. He gives you his Holy Spirit to sanctify you, and you are called to share in his holiness.

The word ‘saints’ means ‘holy ones’. In the New Testament it is applied to all Christians. You are ‘called to be holy’ (1 Corinthians 1:2). Holiness is a gift you receive when you put your trust in Jesus, receive his righteousness and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Seek to live out a holy life in grateful response to God’s gift, through the imitation of Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit.

None of us are holy except through the gift of God. Jesus died as the Passover lamb in order that we can be forgiven and cleansed. Holiness is a gift from God. When we fail we need to come back to the cross without delay and receive forgiveness.

David entrusted the work to his son Solomon. He called him to serve God with ‘wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts’ (v.9). God calls you, as he did Solomon, to a holiness that goes beyond action, to the heart, the motives and the thoughts.

David said that God is a God who tests the heart and is pleased with integrity (29:17). David was a man of ‘integrity of heart’ (Psalm 78:72). This is a good definition of holiness.

It has been said that everyone has three lives – a public life, a private life and a secret life. Holiness is about living an integrated life, rather than a dis-integrated one. Holiness is where there is no difference between our public, private and secret lives and no difference between what we profess and what we practise. Holiness is linked to wholeness. When God calls you to be holy, he is saying ‘be wholly mine’.

David prayed, ‘Give my son Solomon the wholehearted devotion to keep your commands, requirements and decrees and to do everything to build the palatial structure for which I have provided’ (1 Chronicles 29:19).