What would you answer if I asked you to complete the sentence: God is ____________? Most people would answer with something they had already discovered about God: God is peace, God is righteous, God is my healer, God is my provider, God is my guide, God is my protector, and God is all-knowing. While all of those would be right answers, those adjectives and nouns and a thousand more still would not define God, because He is more than we could ever grasp, let alone define.
The apostle Paul states in Ephesians 3:20 this God “is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine”.
Suppose you completed the sentence this way, “God is faithful”. Well, He is more faithful than you could possibly imagine. If you said, “God is loving”, because you’ve experienced that love, you still haven’t come close to comprehending how abundant that love is.
God is not what He has been, nor is He what He currently is to you. God is what He could be. GOD IS MORE! He certainly is all that you’ve discovered, but He is also more than you or I could ever dream or imagine.
The prophet Isaiah asked this question, “With whom, then, will you compare God? To what image will you liken Him?” [Isaiah 40:18]
How can I comprehend God’s power? Can I even begin to get a grasp of all that He can do? He spoke the universe into existence. What could God do if He really tried and put His full power to work?
How can I get a handle on God’s love and grace? Wow, thank Him for sending His Son to die for our sins!!!! Yet can you, I know I can’t, fathom the depth and full meaning of that love and grace expressed through Christ’s actions on our behalf? As much as I try to, it’s beyond me to understand such love for an undeserving person like myself.
Let me be honest with you. As I try to think about God being eternal, it scares me. As a finite being I can’t understand infinity. It takes me far outside my comfort zone to seek to understand these things. God is too Big for me to nicely fit into a box and feel good that I now know God in all His fullness. A gnat could drink in the Atlantic Ocean before my earthly mind can comprehend the Eternal God. YET, that should not keep me from wanting to know Him in all His fullness. In Ephesians Paul prays for the members of the church in Ephesus to come to know the length, width, height, and depth of God’s love [Ephesians 3:18-19]. And that is just one aspect of God.
What are you doing to get to know God? Really, don’t quickly pass over that question. What are you intentionally doing to be more intimate with Your Creator and Redeemer? I remember when I first fell in love with Lucy I couldn’t do enough to get to know her better. And now almost 42 years later, not a week goes by that I’m not discovering a new and precious aspect about who she is. Should we not make it our life-long and daily goal to get to know God better?
The apostle Peter writes, “Do you want more and more of God’s kindness and peace? Then learn to know Him better and better, For as you know Him better, He will give you, through His great power, everything you need for living a truly good life; He even shares His own glory and his own goodness with us!” [2 Peter 1:2-3 The Living Bible]
The better we know Him, the more we will experience who He is in our lives. In fact, what was the personal name of Himself that God shared with Moses? Right, “I Am”. God was saying I am whatever you need. Do you need comfort? Then I Am comfort! Do you need courage? Then I Am courage! For you and I to experience more of who “God is” then we must first get to know Him better and better. Will you join me in rededicating yourself to that adventure?
To know God and the power of His Resurrection
Pastor Steve