Thoughts on God For Such a Time as This

Christian author A.W. Tozer writes in his wonderful little book, The Knowledge of the Holy “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”  He makes this point out of an understanding that what we believe to be true about God, and how we live in response to that truth, will not only define our life in this world and how we experience and respond to the perils of our short little time in it, but more importantly will determine our eternal destiny in the world to come.

Now the Bible reveals that for many people God is not even in their thoughts, which is in itself a problem.   However, most of us have some concept of God that influences how we live in this world.

Some of us have a concept in our mind of God as a friendly, serviceable, manageable deity; who lacks any real power and influence in this world; who is limited by His own “spiritual laws” and subject to and accommodating of man’s “free will” and Satan’s mischief.   Such a god would be easy to ignore and discount as irrelevant.

Others perceive God as a means to their own personal and private happiness – a magic Genie type god,  whose reason for existence is to fulfill their plans and purposes;  and when He fails to do so becomes  the object of their anger, resentment  and scorn.

There are those of us who see God as sort of a cosmic grandfather who indulges our wants and desires, loves us just the way we are in all of our sin and rebellion; having no standards of moral excellence to which we are held accountable to thus a god from which we need not fear his justice or judgement.

Many people I have spoken with have a concept of God in which all he requires of us to merit his earthly blessings and entry into heaven at our death is that we sincerely believe he exists.

Then there is the concept of God as harsh, demanding and unknowable, from whom we have to earn or merit his acceptance, favor and blessings through strict law keeping, regular participation in prescribed religious rituals and activities, and the doing of good works.

And finally, we have the man who when asked by a pollster regarding his concept of God replied that his concept of God was that of “just a normal god”, without providing any further details regarding his answer.

I would suggest that these diluted, distorted thoughts of God, which are all too common in our world, can never provide and deliver the enduring comfort, peace of mind and substantive hope we need and long for in times of external peril and internal distress.

For that to take place we need to replace this small, diluted, distorted thinking about God with God’s thoughts about God, as He reveals them in the Bible.  There we find God revealing Himself as the eternal self-existent, self-sufficient creator and sovereign ruler of the universe and all that is in it; a stunningly majestic, fearfully awesome being of extraordinary beauty and wonder; a being of infinite goodness wisdom and power, perfectly just and Holy, who is near to all who call upon Him within the context of this truth.  He has promised to care for them in times of trouble, comfort them in times of distress, protect them from all that would attempt to destroy their faith, and bring them through all the afflictions they will face in this world into His glorious presence where they will forever know only fulness of joy and pleasures forevermore.   It is only our faith in such a God as this (Exodus 15:11) that we can find peace and comfort and hope in such a time as this.

Grace and Peace ×