by Matthew Raley Americans, pragmatic as they are about everything, tend to evaluate God the same way they evaluate their congressman: What have you done for me lately?

There shouldn't be any question on God's part about whether to keep our blessings coming: the financial windfall, the narrow escape from an accident, robust health, and above all, fun. He knows we're not perfect. He knows we try -- at least when we feel like it. And he ought to know that, despite our limitations, we're doing a pretty darn good job with life.

So, when we put a prayer in the heavenly slot, we have a right to hear some clicking, a whir, and a final clop as the item we requested appears. Fair is fair.

The biblical word holy intrudes on this fantasy.

When Isaiah sees God enthroned in the temple (Isaiah 6), some of the more threatening aspects of the vision are the seraphim. These creatures have six wings apiece: two pairs to pay deference to the Lord by covering face and feet, and one pair to fly. The verb stem of fly is intensive, meaning not merely that they hover, but that they dart around the high throne.

All the while, they call warnings to each other: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!" These calls are loud and deep enough to shake the foundations of the temple.

The root idea of holy is separate, or unmixed. To say that God is holy is to call him Other.

But that is not all the seraphim are saying. The Hebrew language is built on repetition; to repeat a word is to compound its force. "Holy, holy" would be the maximum imaginable Otherness. The seraphim are calling, "Holy, holy, holy": the Otherness beyond your ability to imagine.

No wonder Isaiah says, "I'm dead!" He and his people are unclean -- that is, mixed and corrupt, unable to survive the presence of utter holiness.

America pragmatism doesn't work well. We resent that the cosmic vending machine won't deliver on demand, and that heaven is silent when we pound it. If Isaiah's vision is true, then we are operating on a theory of God that is disastrously wrong.

Pragmatists have no category for holiness. This omission means that we not only can't understand God's judgment but, even worse, we can't understand his grace. The Lord says the same thing to us that he said to Isaiah: "I will make you clean."

God's holiness means that every single blessing we receive has crossed the infinite chasm between us and the purity of his being. It means that his extension of cleansing to us is life itself.

by Matthew Raley For many American evangelicals, "fearing God" has come to mean respecting Him a bunch. God is a coach. He knows what he's doing, and you should keep that in mind if he makes a decision you don't like. You should also keep in mind that Coach's blustering is just drama to keep you on your toes.

So when Solomon says (Proverbs 1.7) that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge," he's not talking about fear-fear; he's just saying, "Show some respect! You might learn a thing or two."

The problem is that, both in the Old and New Testaments, human behavior in the presence of God is consistently desperate. When Isaiah saw the Lord (Isaiah 6.5), he exclaimed literally, "I am annihilated!" Ezekiel's vision of God's glory put him in a stupor for a week (Ezekiel 3.15). John saw the resurrected Jesus (Revelation 1.17), on whose bosom he had once reclined, and "fell at [Jesus'] feet as though dead."

Respect isn't a believable reaction to the awesome nature of God's presence. Fear is.

Solomon is saying that fear -- real fear -- is the beginning of knowledge because it's the right emotional response to the power and holiness of God. It's the starting-point for measuring life, the foundation of safety and health.

But how can you relate to God without being paralyzed?

When my dad taught me to use a lawn mower, the first thing he did was start it, turn it on its side, and show me the blade. He wanted me to be afraid of it, and I was. Then he showed me how to be safe: never pull the mower toward my feet, etc. Once I knew how to use the mower, I pushed it confidently -- even though my fear of the blade remained vivid.

Think of this kind of fear more personally.

When a man is abusive, you fear him because you never know what he's going to do. You try to judge what mood he's in, to discover early warnings that he's about to go off, because his anger could flare instantly.

The fear of God is not like that.

I feared my dad, and still do, not because he was unpredictable and abusive, but because he had integrity and consistency. His reaction toward wrong was nothing to trifle with.

We fear God not because he is abusive -- because we never know what he'll do -- but because we know exactly what he will do. The scriptures reveal his nature for just that reason. So for me, there is no contradiction between fearing God and having an intimate confidence in him. In fact, the right kind of fear is the foundation of confidence.

by Matthew Raley We tend to associate gratitude with being polite -- or worse, being respectable. And I suspect our view of Christmas is tainted as a result.

In our point of view, I show gratitude to avoid giving offense. After all, if someone helps me out, I don't want to take the help for granted, as if I were entitled to it. That would foreclose the possibility of being helped again. So I show gratitude for the same reason Americans are polite generally: pragmatic vigilance.

The lower form of this pragmatism is to tend appearances. I don't want someone to think I'm ungrateful, so I express gratitude to maintain respectability.

This kind of gratitude is alien to the Bible.

Here's one of the Bible's most important, and most neglected, verses (Romans 1.21). "For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened."

To explain the depth of human perversity, Paul says that we did not "honor God as God." God is the creator of all things (vv 19-20, 25). He has a rank that is infinitely above ours: creator to creature. Honor in this case is not a matter of politeness, but of profound, inflexible, eternal indebtedness.

Giving thanks is the payment. The gratitude is not about being appreciative, as if we were supposed to say, "Wow, it was so nice of you to make me and all my stuff!" The gratitude is what we owe God when we cannot repay the debt. "You gave me life. I can never repay what I owe you. But I can live for your glory in humble gratitude."

I understand this best as a parent. When my sons spontaneously say, "Thanks, Dad!" for something I do, I am repaid in the coin of honor. More than the thing I provide, they value me.

How does this concept of gratitude relate to Christmas?

Christ Jesus came to this world to give his life for our redemption. He did so when we were still ungodly -- still expressing ingratitude for created life, giving no honor to him as God (Romans 5.8). So what we celebrate in this season is the double-gift of life that is doubly beyond our ability to repay.

We are celebrating our debt of gratitude.

by Matthew Raley Bitterness is a conviction that your life is filled with unfairness. It is one of the most common spiritual conditions I come across, and it is debilitating. Here are some characteristics of bitterness that I've noticed in myself and others.

1. Bitterness is a story.

When someone expresses his bitterness, it has characters and plot. "First they took my lunch money. Then they stole my invention -- which would've made me rich. Then they cut off my unemployment. And now you want a tip! This always happens to me!"

Here is Jacob's response when his oldest son Reuben needs to take the youngest son to Egypt to buy food during a famine (Genesis 42.36): "You [Reuben] have bereaved me of my children: Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and now you would take Benjamin. All this has come against me." Jacob has been telling himself a story about Reuben.

A good start at dispelling bitterness is to notice the stories you tell yourself.

2. The bitter story is deceitful.

The story usually lumps disparate people into one category. They stole my lunch money, my invention,  and my unemployment benefits. You want a tip. Ergo, you belong with them. Time to challenge the composition of they.

Also, the story interprets actions as if they are about "me." Life is unfair because people are always against me, stealing from me, dissing me. But, reality is, no one thinks about me as much as I do.

Jacob's story leads him to blame Reuben for events that were not Reuben's fault. But it makes total sense to Jacob because deception wears a cloak of plausibility.

Another way to dispel bitterness is to challenge your own assumptions.

3. Bitterness ignores God's story.

Because I am the center of the bitter story, and my point of view dominates, I can edit the parts that confuse the plot. The part where, for instance, someone gave me a sandwich after my lunch money went missing. The part where my invention that was going to make me billions didn't actually work. Or the part where I started a new job after my unemployment ran out. These scenes mess up the story, so out they go.

In Genesis 42, Jacob doesn't know yet that Joseph is alive, that it was Joseph who arrested Simeon in Egypt, and that it is Joseph who will save the family from starvation and bring reconciliation. And Jacob has conveniently forgotten how God protected and provided for him before.

God is busy working his agenda for our lives, and he is not going to adjust it to our preferences. Nor should he: his agenda is good. So, in addition to forgiveness, the most helpful single way to dispel bitterness is hour-to-hour gratitude, which prevents the bitter story in the first place.