How Great IS Our God?
Chris Tomlin lifts it up as an exclamation of praise, but I'm asking it as a practical question:
How great is our God?
Better yet: How great is YOURGod?
(And, no, this isn't one of those elementary school questions like, "If God can do anything, can He make rock that's to big for Him to lift?")
Not like that at all. This is much more important.
How great is your God?
Mine, most of the time, is not great enough - or at least that's how I treat Him most of the time.
Let me be clear: My God is great enough to have created the universe, and everything in it. My God is great enough to conquer death. My God is great enough to secure my eternal salvation.
My God is the God of the Bible - the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who was, is and is to come. My God is thatGod.
But, I don't always treat Him that way. You see, the problem is not that God is not great enough in reality. The problem is that God is not always great enough in my mind, as evidenced through my prayers.
The Bible portrays God as a hero - which He is. He always comes through for his people, but it always seems to be at the last minute.
The Israelites are pinned down, caught at the edge of the Red sea with the whole Egyptian army bearing down upon them. Nowhere to go! The end appears obvious, and dreadful... [Now enters the best phrase ever uttered:] ...But God... steps in as a wall of cloud between the army of Egypt and the nation of Israel, parts the Red Sea and allows the entire nation of Israel to cross over on dry land; moves aside to allow the Egyptians to pursue the Israelites; and drowns the entire Egyptian army when He puts the sea back in its right place.
That's who my God is, but that's not how I treat him. To be honest, that's not how most Christians treat him. Most of my brothers and sisters in Christ do not treat God like the hero he is. We don't pray big enough. More often than not, the prayers I pray and that I hear others pray don't expect much of God.
How often do we pray something like, "God be with [insert name] today." When, if we read our Bibles, we know that He is always with us. So, if God is already with us, we're not asking anything of him.
Or how often do we ask God to "try" to do something? That is one thing God has never done. God has never "TRIED" to do anything. Think about it: is there anything he can't do? No. (OK, let's not go back to the rock question.) God either does it, or he doesn't.
If there's nothing God can't do, why would we ask Him to tryto help us out? "Try" is the word we use when we're afraid we will fail, and we don't want to look stupid for attempting. Another moment of clarity: God has never failed. God has never looked stupid.
So, why don't we pray big prayers? For the same reason we insert the phrase "... if it's your will..." - it's because we're "trying" to ask God for something. It's because we're not sure that He's going to answer our prayer like we want him to, so we give God an out. When we don't get what we asked for, we say "Well, it must not have been God's will." Maybe because we didn't ask enough.
Why don't we start asking God to do things that will just blow our minds? Why don't we pray like our God is a GREAT God. Why don't we read back through the Bible to see how great He really is, and start praying that way.
The next time you bow your head to pray, before you begin, ask yourself: How great is our God? Then, pray like you mean it.
Created 9 months ago
