# Holiness Day 3 > Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God. ### Opening Prayer: *Gracious and loving God, you know the deep inner patterns of my life that keep me from being totally yours. You know the misformed structures of my being that hold me in bondage to something less than your high purpose for my life. You also know my reluctance to let you have your way with me in these areas. Hear the deeper cry of my heart for wholeness and by your grace enable me to open to your transforming presence in this time. Lord, have mercy. (Invitation to a Journey by Robert Mulholland Jr.)* #### Psalm for the Week: Psalm 99 #### The Lord Our God Is Holy *99 The Lord reigns; let the peoples tremble!He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake!2 The Lord is great in Zion;he is exalted over all the peoples.3 Let them praise your great and awesome name!Holy is he!4 The King in his might loves justice.[a]You have established equity;you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.5 Exalt the Lord our God; worship at his footstool!Holy is he!* *6 Moses and Aaron were among his priests,Samuel also was among those who called upon his name. They called to the Lord, and he answered them.7 In the pillar of the cloud he spoke to them they kept his testimonies and the statute that he gave them.8 O Lord our God, you answered them;you were a forgiving God to them,but an avenger of their wrongdoings.9 Exalt the Lord our God,and worship at his holy mountain;for the Lord our God is holy!* #### Scripture for the Day: Colossians 1:19-23 *19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.* *21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation[a] under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.* #### Reading for Reflection: *We must hide our unholiness in the wounds of Christ as Moses hid himself in the cleft of the rock while the glory of God passed by (Exodus 33:21-23). We must take refuge from God in God. Above all we must believe that God sees us as perfect in His Son while He disciplines and chastens and purges us that we may be partakers of His holiness. (Knowledge of the Holy by A. W. Tozer)* *Holiness in human life is a reflection of the holiness of God and, therefore, has always been associated with the religious experience. Holiness is a special word that suggests not so much a particular quality of the divine, as the essence of the transcendent mystery which for the believer stands at the center of human existence. The word holiness carries with it connotations of the numinous, and therefore includes the experience of awe and wonder and power—all of which cannot be clearly defined. Holiness always implies something more— pointing to that mystery which can never be contained. More than any other word in the history of the language, it speaks of the essence of religious experience. (Invitation to Holiness by James Fenhagen)* #### Reflection and Listening: silent and written #### Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself #### Song for the Week: Holy, Holy, Holy *Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty!* *Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;* *Holy holy, holy, merciful and mighty!* *God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity!* *Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore Thee,* *Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;* *Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee,* *Which wert and art and evermore shalt be.* *Holy, holy, holy! Though the darkness hide Thee,* *Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see,* *Only Thou art holy; there is none beside Thee,* *Perfect in power, in love, and purity.* *Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!* *All Thy works shall praise Thy name in earth and sky and sea.* *Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty!* *God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity!* ### Closing Prayer: *Thank you Lord, that you see me as holy because of the gift of your Son. Help me to celebrate the holiness you have given me by being wholly yours this day. Amen. (JLB)*