July 1, 2012

Awed by God’s Grandeur

“How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!” (Genesis 28:17).

On some level, every human being can understand the amazement of Jacob when he realized what he was seeing. As he slept that night at Bethel, fleeing from his brother’s wrath and with a stone as his pillow, he dreamed of “a ladder [that] was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it” (Genesis 28:12). Above the ladder was God Himself, who spoke to Jacob words of promise and hope! And having grasped this portion of God’s greatness, Jacob was a man changed for the better.

Like Jacob, we need to contemplate the majesty of God and the marvel of God’s communication with God’s creation. Nothing is more healthy for us spiritually than to be struck by the wonderful lightning of God’s grandeur. It is a truly transforming experience.

It was Immanuel Kant who said, “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing wonder and awe: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.” The connection between these two sources of wonder is more than coincidental. We can’t give serious consideration to God’s greatness without being appalled by the huge chasm between God’s perfection and our own imperfection. To be awed by God’s grandeur is to be moved to turn away from anything inconsistent with God’s glory. Thus for fallen creatures such as we are, there must always be strong elements of humility and repentance in worship. “Repentance is the process by which we see ourselves, day by day, as we really are: sinful, needy, dependent people. It is the process by which we see God as he is: awesome, majestic, and holy” (Charles Colson). For us, godly sorrow should be a quite natural part of our reverence.

God’s grandeur . . . our need . . . unutterable awe. These things are the very heartbeat of religion. If we really live in God, we’ll lose ourselves in wonder before God.

“For worship is a thirsty land crying out for rain. It is a candle in the act of being kindled. It is a drop in quest of the ocean, . . . It is a voice in the night calling for help. It is a soul standing in awe before the mystery of the universe, . . . It is time flowing into eternity, . . . [It is] a man climbing the altar stairs to God” (Dwight Bradley).