Have you ever thought about what makes God so great? I have heard people praying and recognizing so many wonderful and powerful things about God. Their prayers talk about how powerful God is. He is the King of the Universe, all-powerful and mighty. By simply speaking He is able to create all things. Nothing can exist without Him.
He is also all knowing, even to the point of knowing how many hairs there are on our heads. He is omnipresent so that we cannot hide from Him and there is nothing we can do which He would not know about. There is nothing new to Him. All our greatest technology is simplistic to Him. Our greatest minds are as preschoolers compared to His most elementary thoughts.
He owns everything. Forget about the richest men in the world. God owns the universe and could make many more universes if He wanted to. He rules from a city where the foundations are of precious gems, and the streets are of gold. He has servants whose only desire is to serve Him and they wait patiently around His throne just to hear what His next words are.
He lives outside of time. He was before time began, and He will be after time ends. There is nothing which has ever happened where He was not there and had an intricate knowledge of. He is more wonderful, awesome and powerful then we can even imagine.
All I have said above is true, but I don’t care about all that. It is not meaningless but it is not what is truly important about God. You can take all that away and God would still be more wonderful than anything or anyone living.
What makes God worthy of my love? It is not because of all I have written here. Those things are simply abilities and states of His status. The real reason to love God is found in 1 John 4:19 “We love him, because he first loved us.”
God loves you so much that He actually gave up all the wonderful and powerful things I mentioned the first part of this post. Jesus gave up all of Heaven’s riches and glory to be born in a barn and live in a primitive world full of sin, sorrow and death. He had no power of his own except what The Father sent through Him. Jesus loved us so much that he gave up everything, including his earthly life so that we can know God and live eternally with Him.
Forget about power and riches. I want to know Jesus and be with him because of his heart’s love for me. How can I deny such love? Even if Heaven and eternal life were not promised to me, I would still have to love Him.
Photo Credit: Black Holes Go 'Mano a Mano by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center
Interesting article. I have been pondering Romans 9 where the question is raised "why does God find if fault? For who can resist his will?" Or in other words if God creates some to honor and others to dishonor and this has nothing to do with "him who wills or runs," then this means that God is the author of sin and evil for His own purposes to be filled. One part of His plan seems to be the demonstration of who He is. It seems to be that creation in the way that it was created is the best model whereby God can do this very thing, "show Himself."
ReplyDeleteTo the one who raised the question as to how can God find fault if He wills my rebellion, Paul seems to contrast the value of Gods plans over the value of men. It appears that all the suffering in the world, all the hurt and pain and hopelessness if it could have a value attached to it would not amount to even a gram of Gods desire and determination to bring to pass that which Gods views as most valuable. He says, Who are you O 'man that thou repliest against God?" The question that I am led to ask is not "how valuable is God to me?, as I should be Led to the question "How valuable is God- to God?
God created man and while all are created with the intent of them being honorable, not all decide to follow God and so they live a dishonorable life. God created man but it is man who decides to be filled with God or reject God.
DeleteHow valuable are you to God? God is God and is more valuable then we are. But we are of more value then all of the universe. When Jesus died on the cross for us, God paid for us with someone infinitely more valuable then us. Your right that all the hurt and pain and hopelessness can not amount to even a gram of God's desire and determination to bring to pass that which God views as most valuable. What He sees as most valuable is you becoming the Man of God who He created you to be.
I know that this is not a popular view of God. However it appears to be that God is the most concerned with demonstrating the many facets of His person. To say that God loves is true but does that mean that the love of God is qualitatively the same across the board? Did God love Pharaoh in the same manner that He loves Jesus? Does God love even the best Christian in the same way that he Loves Christ? We are all accepted in the beloved, that is if we are accepted in the beloved. If not I imagine that it is the same as when God told Abraham that He would spare Sodom and Gomorrah if he found some righteous amongst the people. When God takes His restraints off of the spirit of disobedience and sin is allowed to run rampant in a way that has not been seen there to fore, the antichrist will come and unless those days would be shortened no flesh would be saved in that day. All this in mind, the real reason why they rebel even in the clear evidence of the two witnesses it is because Jesus said no one CAN come to me unless it be first given to them of the father or unless they are enabled of the Father. If God fashions both good and bad vessels for His purposes then in light of the suffering that exists in the world, Gods intrinsic value must be infinitely beyond our frame of reference for the experience of men to be so severe and yet so inconsequential. Either that or we exaggerate our sense of self worth not having any plain, accessible, obvious and tangible thing to give us a frame of reference to give a true assessment of our actual worth as a species. ahardwick6628@att.net
ReplyDeleteYou are thinking in terms of love as a feeling. Love is an action. God's love means a sacrificial love. How much does He love any man compared to Jesus? He sacrificed Jesus on a cross for you. He has made promises to you which limits His power to do anything he wants. For example: John 3:16 is a promise to give you eternal life if you simply believe in Jesus as your savior. God has limited Himself in His judgment of people if they accept Jesus. He sacrifices everyday for you, me and everyone in the world. He loves Jesus completely and He loves you just as completely.
DeleteGod's intrinsic value IS infinitely beyond our frame of reference, but so is our value to God. However we must remember that our value is not because of us or anything within us, but because of God and His value of us.