Hi.
So as we go towards the end of the year, we get around the point where we are reflecting on the days past, contemplating a future to come as well as for some begin to inquire of God for a word for the new and upcoming year but today, I am going to share something that can fit into either of the two and a recent “eye-opener” I believe the Lord has given me that seems to quite relate to what I shared at the start of the year—the message of the year on we as the body of believers will awaken to who we are and that the world will return to God as we do. I believe it is kind of a “thing” amongst preachers to want to encapsulate entire messages into catch-phrases and have them catch on amongst who-ever is listening and if I seem to be doing the same and it bothers you, please let it pass; remember at times what it means to preach or share about God is to attempt to put into words the glory and greatness of a God who is greater than words can do justice.
Which incidentally is what I want to talk about today. A.W Tozer said something I paraphrase as “What the church needs is a vision of the greatness of God;” and literally “Left to ourselves, we reduce God to manageable proportions.” And to be honest, of the latter I know I have been guilty and of late; the Spirit has been just unearthing these layers and false-filters in my life. And if we are honest, haven’t most of us? Have we not boxed God into a set of rules He works in and a protocol where outside of which, we have doubts and reasons why it is not God?
At some point, have we not converted the Bible from being a revelation of God to being a collection of petty limits on God where anything outside of that we know or what we think we know we automatically rule out as not being of God? I mean, is it not disturbing the way most of us are familiar with some story of some spooky traditional story or tradition and there is nothing that has been done about it? Or the way some things are “just the way men are;” or the way “just women are?” I mean, the way we cower at every challenge; the way we seem helpless when faced with difficult situations or the way at times we approach worship so casually like it is just some other thing and we are lacking in reverence of who He is?
There is a song entitled “How great is our God?” and when I consider the way we do Christianity, are we really aware of his greatness that is far greater than the entire universe? Are we really conscious of the fact that God is entirely without one who can compare to Him and that there has never been and will never be any like Him? Are we aware that God does not break a sweat because of anything in the universe; that destroying or creating the world anew would not exhaust or diminish Him in any way and that though such would scare the daylights out of us, to Him it would merely be like squeezing his fingers together—and really even such a comparison does not do Him justice? Are we aware of the fact that the devil is nothing more than a created being who does not know everything, who is not omnipresent or omnipotent and that really besides God there is no comparison? “How great is our God?” The question goes out again: and I fear in our minds we have a silent answer; we have a response where God dwells in and a limit to what He can do; not in admitted belief but at least in the way we do life; in our expectation of what He can do? Of the restoration to broken hearts; of healing to the sick; of the restoration of the maimed and of every manner of miracle that can be done under the face of this earth.
I will warn us again with the words of Tozer. God cannot be put down to any manageable proportions; and His greatness is really beyond our comprehension. And awakening ourselves to this reality will give us as children of God boldness to hold on to our dreams; to chuck the devil out where He does not belong and to rule and reign in life knowing that we are loved by a God who is our Father and to whom truly infinite power belongs.
Selah.
The Lord be with you always.