There’s a song that we teach our children to sing, “My God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there’s nothing my God cannot do.” We say we trust in the Almighty God. Yet very often, this is not expressed in the way we live.
J.B. Phillips in his book, Your God Is Too Small addressed the inadequate conceptions about God. Many often viewing Him with images such as “Resident Policeman” or “Grand Old Man” or “Meek-and-Mild”, or as “Managing Director”. People limit God with these insufficient ideas of God, resulting in them living unsatisfactorily and without any faith at all.
Another author David Legge wrote: “Whether as Christians or non-Christians, we tend to pigeonhole, to categorise, to systemise, to dissect God.” That’s the danger we can fall into. Indeed, we must acknowledge that with our limited minds, we will never be able to grasp the greatness of God. The only way we can know of His greatness is through God’s self-revelation.
“To whom can you compare God? What image can you find to resemble Him?” (Isa 40:25, NLT). This was the weighty question posed by God through His prophet.
Reflecting on this, J.I. Packer wrote: “This is where most of us go astray. Our thoughts of God are not great enough; we fail to reckon with the reality of His limitless wisdom and power. Because we are limited and weak, we imagine that at some points God is too. We think of God as too much like what we are. Put this mistake right, says God; learn to acknowledge the full majesty of your incomparable God and Savior.”
Two lovely Psalms that capture for us God’s greatness which the Psalmist also connects to His relationship with mankind. In Psalm 145, the Psalmist David exclaimed: I will exalt you, my God and King, and praise your name forever and ever. I will praise you every day; yes, I will praise you forever. Great is the Lord! He is most worthy of praise! No one can measure His greatness. (Ps 145:1-3, NLT)
Reading through the whole Psalm, we will see references to the Lord God as omnipotent (all-powerful), omnipresent (ever present) and omniscient (all-knowing). And yet, this majestic God is also “merciful and compassionate … filled with unfailing love” (v 8). He will draw close to “all who call on Him in truth” (v 18) and “He grants the desires of those who fear Him” (v 19). This truth is simply too amazing for us!
The other Psalm is the prayer of Moses, as recorded in Psalm 90. Here Moses acknowledged God as the Creator. At the same time, he mentioned that “ through all the generations you have been our home!” affirming that God is the One to whom we belong and in whom we will find love and security. And this is the reality for the whole chronology of history.
Throughout this Psalm, Moses marvelled at the greatness of God while rightly recognizing the finiteness of humankind.
And in response, he prayed asking God to “teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom” (v 12) and “Satisfy us each morning with your unfailing love, so we may sing for joy to the end of our lives” (v 14).
This is mind-boggling. Contemplation of this truth should rightly lead us to worship and adoration of this great and awesome God.
We should be mindful never to reduce God to inadequate human conceptions but instead consider who He is based on what He has revealed of Himself through His revealed Word to us.
The apostle John, in the opening chapter of the Gospel he wrote, penned these in reference to Jesus Christ: “No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is Himself God, is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us” (John 1:18).
We will come to know this great God through Jesus Christ. This will result in life-changing significance in our lives. So, how big is your God? Is He big enough for you to entrust your life to?
By David LT Yap, Advisory Pastor (YCKC Bulletin 21&22 November 2015)