阅读经文 

神“在祂圣洁的光中”是完全美丽的。我们对神的完全圣洁了解得越多，就越意识到我们并不完全圣洁和美丽。我们意识到自己并没有达到神创造我们应该活出的样式。我们没有按照神希望的方式去爱别人。我们没有按照神设计的方式生活。我们的罪使我们与神隔离，因为罪恶不能在神完全、美丽的圣洁面前站立。

《诗篇》九十六篇描述了神的伟大和荣美，祂是完全圣洁的，并呼召我们带着祭物来到祂面前。我们被呼召“当以圣洁的妆饰，敬拜耶和华”，然而我们知道，我们有多少次没有按照神的命令生活。如果我们不圣洁，我们怎么能真正敬拜神呢？

今天我们知道的好消息是，神藉着给我们祂完美的恩典来对付我们罪的不完美。神选择除去我们的罪——不是靠惩罚我们，而是靠耶稣自己承受了刑罚。我们越是看到神的完美，就越是知道我们自己的不完美。我们越是知道自己的不完美，就越是感激神完美的爱，神藉着耶稣为我们献上生命的礼物，以恩典接纳了我们。

God is perfectly beautiful "in the splendor of his holiness." The more we know about God's perfect holiness, the more we realize that we are not perfectly holy and beautiful. We realize we don't live up to the way God created us to live. We don't love other people the way God wants them to be loved. We don't live the way God designed us to live. Our sin separates us from God, because sinfulness cannot stand in the presence of God's perfect, beautiful holiness.

Psalm 96 describes the greatness and splendor of God, who is perfectly holy and calls us to come before him with an offering. We are called to "worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness," and yet we know how often we have failed to live as God commands. How can we truly worship God if we are not holy?

The good news that we know today is that God deals with the imperfection of our sin by giving us his perfect grace. God chooses to get rid of our sin—not by punishing us—but by taking the punishment on himself in Jesus. The more we see God's perfection, the more we know our own imperfection. And the more we know our own imperfection, the more we are grateful for God's perfect love, which accepts us by grace through the gift of Jesus' life for us.