The Greatness of God and the Fear of the Lord

Something that has been on my mind a lot lately is the idea of the greatness of God, and our US/Western inability to comprehend a truly “great” God without elevating ourselves to the same level. It is my feeling that we need to have true humility, and see God for what He is, “GREATER” than us. We need to view him as greater then us in “essence”, not just in position. What our US, western culture tends to do is view God has we would our president, as the “first among equals.” Sure, we give the president praise and some honor… but his essence, or personhood is considered equal to us. That is why we can also criticize him and make fun of him. We might give him extra protection, but we would not bow to him. We might say that he in the “position” that gives him the authority to, for example, declare war, but his “personhood” does not. In fact, we take pride in the fact that his power comes from the people, from “us”.
I feel that our love of this value, as true as it is amongst fellow human beings, has tainted our understanding of God. Our view of God has fallen from seeing a being truly greater then us by the simple fact of His existing as Himself… (“I am who I am” – Exodus 3:14) to a God that gain’s His authority from us. We have lost a real sense of “fear” of God, and replaced it with love for a human-centered, wish granting, toothless god who is more concerned with the comforts of humanity then himself. If you were to ask a random person on the street what to them defines the greatness of God, my guess is the vast majority of people (in the US anyway) would say it is His mercy, love, kindness, etc. In fact, I have often heard it said by people that a great God would not send people to hell, and even that they could not believe in such a God.
Aside from the fact that our desire for God to be a certain way has nothing to do with who God actually is or His existence, I think this is very telling about the self-centered attitudes, lack of humility, and quest for comfort in our culture.

I’ve been thinking about this topic lately after reading a book on the life of Martin Luther. (“Here I Stand” by Roland H. Bainton, co. 1978). I was struck by the incredible sense of awe he had for God. Even when struggling with the goodness of God, there was always a sense of his own smallness before God. There was always a sense that he could not ever “condemn” God. He realized that whatever God was, He was. There was nothing that Martin Luther could do to change that. Martin at times took this attitude to such extremes as to lead to deep depression about his own unworthiness, but the point is that He had a sense of the magnitude of who God was. God had “weight” in his life, as John Piper might say. (Actually, John Piper has a good sermon on a similar topic called, “Behold the kindness and the severity of God” - http://www.desiringgod.org/library/sermons/92/062192.html) It was this weight that gave him the conviction to stand firm in-spite of the criticism and danger to his life that he faced.

I feel that Biblically, God shows His greatness not only in his mercy, kindness, grace and forgiveness, but also in the greatness of his wrath and demand for worship. The “weight” in the “weightiness” of God’s mercy is due to the fact that God truly and righteously demands our worship. The seriousness of NOT worshiping God with all of our heart, soul, mind, emotions, etc., is what makes the mercy He gives so amazing. This concept is given a lot of lip service when it stands alone, but shows no weight in many of our lives. We don’t live as if we really “deserve” to go to hell.

We need to come to God with the sense of utter depravity… of utter loss. We need to feel as if we are just “dust and ashes” compared to Him. This is where we can begin to truly know Him… for WHO HE IS. “The fear of the Lord

If we cannot begin to search for God with a righteous fear of Him… we will never find or know Him.

Proverbs 1:7
7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction.

The fear of the Lord is the BEGINNING. Without it, we will find only what we want to find, and continue searching for our own comfort. I don’t think that we were created to seek our own comfort… or our own anything. We were meant to forget about ourselves and rest in God. When we become disciples of Jesus, we follow Him in His purposes; we should not follow Him because he follows ours (again, sounds a lot like the presidential campaign… does the candidate represent our concerns?). We don’t elect God, He elects usJ. Yes, God died to redeem us and to save us, but let’s not make the mistake of thinking that He is “about” us.

Isaiah 43:21
I, I am He
who blots out your transgressions for my own sake,
and I will not remember your sins.

The irony of all this is that the more we can understand our true relationship to God… the smaller – the more insignificant we understand ourselves to be next to God, the more joy, faith (without which we cannot please God), and rest we can find in Him and leads us to greater significance in our insignificance. We become part of something MUCH greater then ourselves.
It also makes so much more potent the fact that we can “boldly” approach the throne of God! The more we understand our lowliness compared to God, the more amazing that is!
This should be more then just lip service. If this is the beginning of knowledge, then it should filter down into every part of our lives and our theologies of God. He is not the first among equals, He is the first, the most Holy, and I humbly rejoice that He has adopted me, a dirty, rotten sinner, to be his SON! There can be no pride or boasting in this… only that God is great. (Romans 15:17-18; 1 Corinthians 1:26-31; 1 Corinthians 3:18-23;)
Glory to God!