Does your idea of God resemble God?
Does your idea of God resemble God? Whether you’ve ever considered this to be serious business, I want to encourage you to believe it is. Very important indeed. A.W. Tozer, noted Pastor, preacher and author, was a man who drank water from a much deeper spiritual well than I would ever expect to. Tozer says “What comes to our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God.” See what I mean? Deep stuff!
Chip Ingram, in his thought provoking book, God As He Longs For You To See Him, proposes there are three gaping errors we stumble into as we learn to think accurately about God. We tend to assume that God is like us, except perhaps supersized or a much improved version of humanity. We can also tend to reduce God to measurable and controllable terms.( Imagine that . . . God as the puppet and we’re the puppeteers.) We can also tend to overlook the obvious and significant ways he has chosen to reveal himself to us.
Again back to Tozer. “We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God.” Of this I’m sure he is correct. My concern is how much or how little we actually meditate about God and from what material do we construct our mental image of God? The merit of this concern is of great importance to those who claim to follow Christ as well as to those who don’t. Either way, if there is a God there will be a day when we will encounter him. If we trust there is a God, how we live our lives should be tremendously influenced by him and his unique design for each of us.
Sensing a need even within myself to look more intently into the wonder and greatness of God, I know that one of the most available and pure sources of inspiration comes from what God says about himself through his word and those who by inspiration recorded it. May I offer you a few verses in the hopes you will take the occasion to meditate deeply upon them and in so doing refresh and sharpen your mental image of God? You may want to keep verses like these close at hand during your times of worship and prayer. There are many, many more.
Isaiah 55:8-9: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
1 Cor. 1:25: “For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.”
Jer. 10:6: “No-one is like you, O Lord; you are great, and your name is mighty in power.”
Col. 1:15-18: “He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.”
1 Chron. 29:11: “Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, O Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all.”
1 Sam. 2:2: “There is no-one holy like the Lord; there is no-one besides you; there is no Rock like our God.”
2 Sam. 7:22: “How great you are, O Sovereign Lord! There is no-one like you, and there is no God but you.”
Think (Meditate) About It.