As I sit at the 2011 Ligonier Ministry Annual Conference taking in the messages centering around Light and Heat, a Passion for the Holiness of God, I am once again reminded of the reality of my own lack of appreciation and sometimes even the lack of awareness of the holiness of God. This short trip has led me to realize that the church at large, and I in particular, have failed to see God for who He is and people for who they are. It is only when we see and understand, though finitely, God’s infinite wonder, magnificence and “transcendent purity”, that we begin to see our own sin and the weight of it. It is only in that moment of understanding of our own depravity and final condition of separation from God’s presence, that we truly begin to see others in their lostness. We had the privilege of worshiping at First Baptist Church of Barnwell, South Carolina this past week, where our good friend and mentor Keith Richardson is Senior Pastor. What a great time we had with them. The church’s Missional Pastor, Lee Clamp, delivered a convicting message of our eternal view of people, especially those outside the church. Do we see people while wearing our own pair of ‘Jesus goggles’? Do we see them on the very precipice of hell? Do we look about us during our visit to the grocery store and see those individuals but a breath from eternal torment? Surely we don’t. For if we did we would tell them of the gospel at every moment of opportunity. We would implore them with desperate cries to repent and believe. To cry out with the love of Christ about the love of Christ. But instead we are so easily satisfied with all this world affords that we complacently allow them to slip past us, possibly into a Christ-less eternity. As Spurgeon said, “If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for.” Lord give us a greater view of You and thereby seeing ourselves and others as meriting souls of hell and yet as undeserving as we are, recipients of Your grace, even the grace of salvation.   soli deo gloria