The psalmist encourages us to worship God in beauty… In the beauty of holiness. I am so grateful that God led the writer to add that last part, because – take away His holiness – and there is nothing beautiful about me.
Nothing on heaven or earth compares to the beauty of God’s holiness. No landscape, no face, no starfield can compare to the beauty of our holy God.
If we seek after His holiness, and if He graciously imparts even an infinitesimal part of that holiness to us, then perhaps those who know us will see that spark of beauty and seek its source.
Never forget, nothing you and I can do can earn God’s holiness. Our righteousness is as filthy rags. God’s righteousness is bestowed upon whom He wills. Surrender to Him. Seek after His holiness like one seeking buried treasures.
Hymn by Isaac Watts, 1803
Let all the earth their voices raise
To sing the choicest psalm of praise,
To sing and bless Jehovah’s name:
His glory let the heathens know,
His wonders to the nations show,
And all his saving works proclaim.
The heathens know thy glory, Lord,The wond’ring nations read thy word,
In Britain is Jehovah known:
Our worship shall no more be paid
To gods which mortal hands have made;
Our Maker is our God alone.
He framed the globe, he built the sky,He made the shining worlds on high,
And reigns complete in glory there:
His beams are majesty and light;
His beauties, how divinely bright!
His temple, how divinely fair!
Come the great day, the glorious hour,When earth shall feel his saving power,
And barb’rous nations fear his name;
Then shall the race of man confess
The beauty of his holiness,
And in his courts his grace proclaim.
Philip Sopher published a piece in The Atlantic two years ago 