“I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees you;
therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.”
– Job 42:5-6

When we truly encounter God, we cannot help but be overwhelmed by His utter greatness and majesty. As wonderful as His nearness, kindness, mercy, and grace are, we should also learn and remember that He is, at the same time, utterly transcendent: all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful, all-good, ever-present. His thinking, understanding, and wisdom are beyond our comprehension. Even in heaven, we’ll spend all of forever growing in our knowledge, excitement, love, and celebration of His glorious attributes!

Too often we operate with an image of God that is much too small. We miss out on so much of the glorious truth that the sovereign Lord of the Universe also loves us and knows us personally. When we think too little of God, we miss the opportunity to have our breath taken away regularly by all that He is, yet all that He does for us.

Spend time in the Bible daily to grow your awareness of just how incredible our God is and how much bigger He is than you can possibly imagine! As you see Him more accurately, not only will you learn to trust in Him even when you don’t understand, you will come to love Him more and more because you grow in understanding His holy, righteous, just, gracious, merciful, and kind love for you, particularly as expressed through His Son Jesus Christ.

“And the Lord said to Job:
‘Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty?
He who argues with God, let him answer it.’
– Job 40:1-2

Job teaches us a hard truth for our modern minds to swallow. We often want to argue with God, criticize Him, or bargain with Him. It’s natural to question Him when things are going wrong and we can’t understand the purpose in our suffering.

However, God’s response isn’t to explain Himself, but to reveal how much beyond us He is in knowledge, wisdom, and power. He is all-knowing, all-good, all-wise, all-powerful, sees across time, and ultimately works all things together for the good of those who love Him. Even His understanding of good transcends ours for we are naturally short-sighted while He sees through eternity.

The point being that the conversations and arguments we wish to have with Him are beyond our ability to comprehend. The point being that He is our Creator and the sovereign ruler of the universe and owes us no explanations.

When we can embrace this and simply trust in His goodness, kindness, mercy, faithfulness, love, and wisdom, it is powerful and profound. Until we can, we will struggle as Job struggled in his trials until he found peace in the person of God rather than his idea of God.

“For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” – Matthew 24:27

Christ will return one day and there will be no mistaking it when He comes. He will not return quietly, sneaking in under the radar. All will see and know and then it will be too late for them to trust in Him as Lord and Savior.

This world is not all there is and we need to stop living and thinking like it is. For followers of Jesus, our forever future is a renewed heaven and earth filled with God’s presence. For everyone else the future is living the eternal fruit of sin and rebellion separated from God’s presence in the agony of hell.

These are realities we must live in light of, rather than functionally acting like things will pretty much going to keep going as they are. We must prioritize the work of God, because only that will last. We must have urgency about inviting people into the Kingdom of God through faith in Jesus Christ. We must stop expecting this world to be made perfect by human leaders or efforts and instead put our hope in Christ and our eternal home. We must certainly care deeply for the most vulnerable around us and work for greater justice, but we must also remember that this world will remain corrupt and fallen until Christ returns to renew it.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.” – Matthew 23:23

It’s very easy to carefully follow all the “rules” and etiquette of “proper” church life yet completely miss the heart of God! That was the problem for the scribes and Pharisees who went above and beyond in their concern for appropriate tithing, even tithing herbs from their garden. Yet their hearts were cold toward other humans created in God’s image.

While deeply concerned with their own righteousness, they didn’t care about the injustice all around them. They didn’t have a bit of mercy toward those who were less able to navigate the written and unwritten rules of 1st century religious life, nor were they generous with their time or treasure to help those in need. Their hearts were also cold toward God, because they ultimately felt responsible for their own right standing before God. Such a mindset is a terrible lie convincing us we don’t really need God, He needs us.

We may never put words to these thoughts, but they can become dangerous assumptions undermining our own spiritual lives. We can be so satisfied with our own progress in holiness that we forget our deeply sinful nature and God’s infinite grace and mercy that pulled us out of that sin through faith in Jesus Christ. We can be so pleased with ourselves and how we “made it on our own” that we lack mercy for those struggling with poverty, addiction, or mental or physical illnesses and disabilities. Guard your heart and thoughts, lest this woe fall upon you too!

“And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” – Matthew 22:37-39

We like to make things complicated, but Jesus makes things simple: love God with every part of your being all the time and love literally everyone you encounter as you love yourself. It’s clear, concise, and comprehensive. All of us, all people, all the time.

But it certainly isn’t easy! To love God with all our heart, soul, and mind when those parts would really rather love ourselves is a huge challenge and won’t happen by accident. It requires discipline developed from really knowing and seeking the Lord through Jesus Christ. It requires an active choice for God no matter what pops up, no matter what situation we’re in, no matter how much we might disagree with God’s plans. It requires focus, determination, and yes, genuine love!

Loving our neighbors can be even harder, because they can so unlovable. That’s the point, it doesn’t matter who they are, we need to love them anyway, just as God loves us no matter who we are! We must love our neighbors because they were created in God’s image just like us. Period.

It can be easy for Christians to emphasize one of these at the expense of the other: either claiming to love God but not really caring about those He created in His image, or busily loving people and using that as an excuse to reimagine God and not love Him as He is. Neither of these is an option – as followers of Christ, we must diligently obey both these commandments!