One well-known Christian minister said: “You’ve got to be really gifted to speak about God and make him seem dull – and some people are very gifted!”
It’s a great shame.
After all, there is nothing dull about the God of the Bible.
When God appeared to the children of Israel at Mount Sinai, there was thunder and lightning, and the sound of a trumpet grew louder and louder.
The people’s experience was so overwhelming that they asked Moses to make God stop talking.
In God’s presence, angels cover their faces and feet in humility, and don’t just double-up their exclamations, but triple them.
“Holy, holy, holy!” they cry.
Daniel the prophet collapsed physically when he was on the receiving end of a divine vision.
Falling on your face and trembling seems to be the standard reaction.
God is pictured in the Bible like a consuming fire (Heb 12.28), like a fountain of life-giving waters (Jer 2.13), like a strong tower, into which you can run (Prov 18.10).
He’s like brilliant sunshine (Ps 84.11), and a vast unsearchable deep (1 Cor 2.10).
He’s depicted as a king, a judge, a husband, and a mother; he’s a man of war, a shepherd, a builder, and a workman.
With the sending of his Son, the name by which he supremely reveals himself is the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matt 28.19).
There’s a book with the title: Your God is Too Small!, and sadly that’s true for most of us.
We struggle to respond fittingly to the God who effortlessly calls non-existent things into being.
We fail to grasp that the sheer existence of all things points us to him.
The medieval theologian, Anselm, defined God as “that than which no greater can be conceived.”
In other words, God is always better than the best thing in creation you can think of!
What you think of when you hear the word 'God' is the most important thing about you.
Why? Because the Bible teaches we’re made in God’s image (Gen 1.26).
That means that rather than us inventing God in our image, we’ll only figure ourselves out when we define ourselves in light of him.
So, maybe it’s time you gave him more of your attention.
No superlatives in the English dictionary can do him justice.
- Simon Arscott is minister at All Nations Church Ilford.
Share