Musing - How Big is Your God?

Hebraic Hebraic Musing - How Big is Your God?

How we handle life depends on how big we believe God is.  If He’s too small…

1) You will live in constant anxiety thinking everything depends on you.

2) Your outlook will be dictated by your surroundings – or worse, your critics.

3) Without the acceptance of a loving God you’ll be a slave to other people’s opinions.

4) You’ll constantly crave recognition from the world, instead of from Father God.

All those debilitating tendencies result from our failure to recognize – "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….”  Isa. 55:8-9  NIV   Do we find ourselves relying on our thoughts instead of His? 

So why might God not answer our prayer(s)?  I heard somewhere that “when we make the mistake of shrinking God, we offer prayer without faith, work without passion, service without joy and suffering without hope – which results in fear, retreat, loss of vision and failure to persevere.” 

Let’s look at a classic example from the OT.  David was a man after God’s own heart (1 Sam.13:14) and David knew he served a big God.  When Goliath threatened the Israelites “Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.” 1 Sam 17:11    We know what happened.  David arrived, assessed the situation and went out to fight Goliath.  “David said to the Philistine (Goliath), ‘You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.’”  1 Sam 17:45   And David finished the challenge by saying “…for the battle is the Lord's, and he will give all of you into our hands." 1 Sam 17:47   How confident was David in the Lord’s battle plan?  He “Chose five smooth stones” so that he had four more stones, one for each of Goliath’s brothers!

We can face anything when we know what David knew – “the battle belongs to the Lord.”   Interesting, the Lord has never lost one yet!  So why do we depend so heavily on our own resources?  David may have felt small, but he knew his God was big enough for the job.  Do we really know that?   Enough to rely on it?

We’ve all recited Romans 8:31.  “If God is for us, who can be against us?”  An Eighteenth-century Anglican clergyman John Newton said, “If the Lord be with us we have no cause for fear. His eye is upon us, His arm over us, His ear open to our prayer, His grace sufficient, [and] His promises unchangeable.” 

How big is our God?  Consider…

·          “Do you not know?  Have you not heard?  The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.  He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.”  Isa 40:28 

·         “Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.” Ps 147:5

·         “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?”   Ps 8:3-4

Wow!  We serve a BIG GOD!

Points to ponder

Would God be more willing to answer prayers
if you acknowledge how big He is?

♫ Our God is an awesome God he reigns from heaven above
with wisdom, power and love.  Our God is an awesome God. ♫

Is your situation too big for Father God?

Reply SVP.

 ‘The battle is the LORD’s…he will give you into our hands.’  1 Samuel 17:47 KJV

Yosef   a.k.a.  Joe Brusherd                          July 16, 2019  

Author: “Hebraic Insights – Messages exploring the Hebrew roots of our faith” 
“Biblical Marriage (by Yosef)”   Weekly “Hebraic Musings”