Our Glorious, Awesome God.

Romans 11:33

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!

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Oh the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How wonderful He is! How unfathomable, how awesome, how powerful! How perfect and holy!

We should be thrilled at who God is. We should be entirely overawed. His wisdom, His plans and ideas, His works are deeper and richer then we could ever fathom. They bring glory to Him and they work for the good, of all those who love Him - revealing His mercy, grace, love, patience, kindness, justice, holiness, perfection and peace to us. God has done more then we could even imagine or measure!

We should simply be over-awed at who God is. We should just stand and appreciate His work, His character, His love. We should just stop and enjoy it, glorying in it and glorifying him for it.

Yet so often we are disinterested. We shrug our shoulders and go back to work or to study or to our meaningless wealth or to our friendships. I do that constantly, in fact it is the rare occasion that I just bask in God's glory - it is very rare. But it is so precious.

The wisdom of God. God's wisdom is wiser then anything we can imagine, "the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength." (1 Corinthians 1:25). What did He decide to do? He sent Jesus, who was and is eternally God as a man, to suffer and die. To live among us, and to be murdered by us. Why? So He could save us, so He could forgive us for our sins, so He could reveal to us God's full character and so that He could love us. No, it isn't about us - it's about Him, but He did do it for us as well. What an awesome God!

What does this mean for us? 

• We can trust God! His wisdom and knowledge are unsearchable because we are so frail and ignorant. Therefore when things don't make sense, when we can't see how God is working, trust him! He knows infinitely more than us! We don't have to fret because He has promised to work everything for His glory and for the good of His people (Romans 8:28)
• We can "Rejoice in the Lord always" (Phil 4:4) because He has shown us His character and it is wonderful. Because He is infinite and unsearchable, yet has revealed himself to us, offering to save us even though we are ignorant and foolish. If we never lose sight of the awesome God we serve, then we never have reason to stop rejoicing, because we should simply be rejoicing in who He is, and that remains constant regardless of what is happening in our lives
• We need to be humble. God is infinite, His plans are so full, so deep, so rich, so perfect that they are unsearchable by us. Who are we to think we know better? Who are we to live in sin and rebellion to him? Who are we to ask why He does what He does? Who are we even to be noticed and loved by Him? Yet he cares for us (1 Peter 5:7) and in His mercy and grace He does call us to know Him and to ask questions. But we do that humbly, knowing that God is unfathomably more awesome then we can understand.
• Just enjoy God. Know His character and bask in the light of who He is. Pray for His help to do that, read His word so that you can understand it further. Just enjoy God for who He is!

God is in control and He works out everything to bring glory to Him in ways that we do not understand. His paths are more wonderful then we can understand, deeper and more glorious then we can search. We cannot comprehend all He does in the world around us, in our lives and the lives of others. But God knows what He does, and we can glorify Him that He is working through everything to bring about His good and perfect purpose. We can glorify Him for who He is, and we should do that.

Where is the Joy in your walk with God? Are you basking in who He is? Are you simply enjoying the God who created, sustains and saved us? Are you enjoying His creation, which sings his praises (Psalm 19)?

To God be the glory! Great things He has done!

Soli Deo Gloria!

Nat.

God hardens hearts for his glory.

Exodus 10:1-2

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Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these signs of mine among them that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the Lord.”

"I have hardened his heart". We don't like hearing that. We like God being in a little box where he can do what we want and be all loving and all merciful without being just, without being pure and without using all things to glorify himself. Sure, if we believe the bible then we "believe" that God is just and in control, but do we truly know it? Or do we subconsciously just ignore those parts of the bible.

The Bible clearly says here that God hardens Pharaoh's heart. It seems clear to me from God's word that God is in control of everything. There are so many passages that establish that (I know many people disagree on that point, whatever you think about it, have a slid biblical basis for it and be ready to discuss it lovingly with those who disagree). Yet at the same time, we are completely responsible for our actions. I don't know exactly how that works out, but I know that God is God, his word is true and therefore bith of those things are true.

In the case of Pharaoh, God hardens his heart, but Pharaoh also chooses to harden his own heart. I don't know how that works - God does, ad I'll trust him with that knowledge. But the point of it is that by it God is able to show forth his mighty power, his just wrath against those who reject him and his infinite mercy, faithfulness and grace toward his people Israel. 

God is glorified even by those who reject him. In them he shows his perfection, justice, holiness and righteousness. Yet he is merciful - he wants all to turn to him and be saved. (1 Timothy 2:4)

We see a similar situation with Jesus. It was always God's purpose for Jesus to die and for the Jews, especially the Pharisees, to reject him. Yet at the same time those who crucified him are responsible and it was entirely their choice to do so. God was complete in control of events and those who did it were completely responsible for it, choosing to do it themselves.

In that situation a similar thing occurs: Gods justice and wrath against sin is shown, since Jesus takes it in our place (if we are Christians), and God's infinite mercy, grace and faithfulness are shown because by it we are saved. His power is also shown because Jesus rose again.

So what do we learn from this?

• We are completely responsible for our actions
• God is in control, so we can trust him. He will keep all his promises because he can. For example, he can and will keep his promise to work everything for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28).
• All situations are controlled by God to bring glory to himself. Therefore we need to trust him and give him the praise even if we don't understand why he is allowing things to happen as they are.

I hope that was helpful! It's one of those topics that is hard to think about and extremely confusing, but extremely comforting and encouraging as well.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Nat.