- These are Written
- Believe
- Should Not Perish
- 3:16
- Never, Never
- Life, Love, Light
- Condemned by Choice
- This and That
- Seven Expressions of Love from the Cross
- Why?
- I know, I know!
- What?
- UGH!
- Expedient
- Gain Grace?
- The Gift
- The Hands of God
- Immortality
- COME UP HERE
- Not by Works of Righteousness We have Done
- Jesus’ Perspective on His own Death
- I AM
We try to comprehend and describe God with terms like goodness, righteousness, holiness, and love. But any words we use to describe the Almighty God and Creator of the Universe fall short of who He truly is. Let’s focus on two things: His immensity and His intimacy. These two words appear to be opposites—two attributes that surely could not be found in the same Person. But, in God, they are coexistent attributes. The Psalmist David said it like this:
“When I consider the Heavens, the work of Your fingers,
the moon and the stars which You have ordained;
What is man, that You would take thought of him?
And the son of man that You would care for him?” Psalm 8:3–4
David ponders on how God, whose fingers formed the Heavens, would find the time and reason to think of a mere man. That’s a legitimate thing to ponder!
Have you ever been in a place where the air is so clear or the altitude so high that you can peer into the darkness of the night sky and behold the Milky Way Galaxy? The immensity and brightness of it is mind-boggling! Yet, the Milky Way—our galaxy—is only one of 2 trillion galaxies in the known Universe. And our planet, Planet Earth, is like a little speck of dust hanging around in the Milky Way. You and I are one of over seven billion souls alive on that speck of dust today. Yet, the immense God who measures out the Universe with the span of His Hand wants to have a personal relationship with you!
God planned and ordained our life before we were ever born. He created us in our mother’s womb; He formed and weaved our inward parts; by His hands we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139). When we believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior, this immense and holy God comes to live inside of us, to indwell us, to call us His own. He knows our thoughts and our desires, our hopes, our dreams, and our fears. He knows the number of hairs on our head! Indeed, we are engraved on the palms of His hands (Luke 12:7; Isaiah 49:16). David says:
“O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
You understand my thoughts from afar.
You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are
intimately acquainted with all my ways.
Even before there is a word on my tongue,
Behold, O Lord, You know it all.
You have enclosed me behind and before,
and laid Your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is too high, I cannot attain to it.” Psalm 139:1–6
The psalmist is describing the intimacy of God’s relationship with His creation yet admits he cannot comprehend how such an immense God would be so interested in the details of his life and, indeed, the life of every man, woman, and child on Planet Earth.
The indescribable gift found in John 3:16 comes to us from an immense God, an intimate God, an indescribable God!