Loving the God Who Rules Over Coronavirus

Our greatest mission, as Christ-following men is to love the LORD our God with all our heart with all of our soul, with all of our mind, and with all of our strength (Mark 12:30).  It might just be that staying focused on this, our highest mission priority—is the best thing we can do during the coronavirus crisis, so that we are the rock of spiritual strength that others need to lean on during our battle with COVID 19. As the world continues through the coronavirus pandemic, you need to the one in your home from whom spiritual strength and confidence emanate—the pillar of faith that those around you need. Your spiritual strength flows directly from the strength of your love relationship with God. And our love for God can only grow as we discover more and more of who he is—what we call the perfections of God. Today, we look at one of those perfections—God’s MAJESTY. Again, let me say, the more we see God’s nature—his perfections—the more deeply we can love and enjoy him. Here are a few texts where majesty is ascribed to God:

O Lord, our Lord, how MAJESTIC is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens (Ps 8:1).

The Lord reigns; he is robed in MAJESTY; the Lord is robed; he has put on strength as his belt. Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved (Ps 93:1).

Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, you are very great! You are clothed with splendor and MAJESTY (Ps 104:1).

On the glorious splendor of your MAJESTY, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate (Ps 145:5).

Let’s try to get a concrete picture of the word, majesty. J. I. Packer writes, The word, ‘majesty,’ comes from Latin; it means greatness. When we ascribe majesty to someone, we are acknowledging greatness in that person, and voicing our respect for it: as, for instance, when we speak of ‘Her Majesty’ the Queen (Knowing God).

The majesty of God reminds us that God is our King and Sovereign, the one to whom we owe allegiance. He is the ruler; I am the subject. I am on planet earth for HIS glory (which also just happens to be exactly what is most to my eternal benefit). He is not the great Amazon in the sky just awaiting our orders for blessings sent to him through prayer. We’re here to please him. To celebrate God’s majesty is to rekindle fierce allegiance, unrivaled loyalty to the High King. We offer that allegiance not because he demands it (which he has the right to do), but because he is worthy of it—being a king who first dies for his subjects out of love for them and then calls them to die to themselves for him.

Besides, signifying God’s royalty, ascribing majesty to him is to celebrate his greatness. Again, quoting Packer,

The word ‘majesty,’ when applied to God, is always a declaration of His greatness and an invitation to worship. The same is true when the Bible speaks of God being ‘on high’ and ‘in heaven;’ the thought here is not that God is far distant from us in space, but that He is far above us in greatness, and therefore is to be adored…. The Christian’s instincts of trust and worship are stimulated very powerfully by knowledge of the greatness of God (Knowing God).

Here is the best summary of God’s greatness probably ever written (apart from Scripture itself). It is from the Westminster Confession of Faith.

There is but one living and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions, immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute, working all things according to the counsel of his own immutable and most righteous will (Westminster Confession of Faith II.l).

We are given the staggering privilege of knowing the greatest, most wonderful being in the universe. How can we be called to know him, love him, honor him, serve him and respond with half-hearted devotion? Such a great God is deserving of great love and devotion. How can anyone know this God, and have the defining word for their devotion to him be mediocrity?  The answer may be that deep in our soul, we only want $3.00 worth of God, not all of him! A lukewarm commitment to Christ says,

I would like to buy $3.00 worth of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk, or a snooze in the sunshine. I don’t want enough of him to make me love a Muslim, or make me give so generously to one in need that I threaten my own financial security. I want comfort, not transformation. I don’t want enough of God to make me surrender my life to him. I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3.00 worth of God, please.” (Original words from Wilbur Reese updated by me.)

When you see God’s majesty, you can’t want only $3.00 of him! To celebrate God’s majesty is to celebrate his GREATNESS. You can’t see that greatness and remain complacent. So, lets try to see it. The biblical authors understood that one of the best ways to start to grasp God’s greatness is to compare him with powers and forces in this world that we regard as great.  In Isaiah 40:12-31, we see four ways that God’s greatness dwarfs every other form of greatness.

THE GREATNESS OF GOD’S KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the  heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord, or what man shows him his counsel? Whom did he consult, and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding (Isaiah 40:12-14)?

There is a human arrogance that demands the right to understand what God is doing in my life. I’m not saying to suppress our doubts about God’s treatment of us being good. We should not bury them but process them with God, as Job did. And in the end we will have to admit that our finite minds simply can’t grasp any good purpose for some things God does. In the final chapter of Job, his words were, 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). Again, NEVER HESITATE TO TAKE YOUR FEELINGS OF GOD’S MISTREATMENT OF YOU TO HIM. He is big enough to handle your accusations, and I believe YOU MUST PROCESS THOSE FEELINGS WITH GOD to move beyond them. But know that it is profoundly arrogant for us to sit in judgement against God. How could our puny brains ever understand his eternal purposes?

THE GREATNESS OF GOD’S CONTROL

Isaiah 40 continues,

Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust. Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in; who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness. Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows on them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble (vs 15, 21-24).

I’m sure that Bible-believing Christians have stressed many times in the past weeks that God is sovereign over COVID 19. Nevertheless, it is reassuring to hear again that God is in complete control. And the one who has that control is worthy of being trusted with that every ounce of his power. Some years ago, Steve Green got it right in his song, God and God Alone:

God and God alone created all these things we call our own.
From the mighty to the small the Glory in them all is God's and God's alone.

God and God alone reveals the truth of all we call unknown
And the best and worst of man won’t change the Master's plan, it's God's and God's alone.

God and God alone, is fit to take the universe's throne.
Let everything that lives reserve its truest praise for God and God alone

God and God alone will be the joy of our eternal home.
He will be our one desire. Our hearts will never tire of God and God alone.

God and God alone is fit to take the universe's throne
Let everything that lives reserve its truest praise for God and God alone!

THE GREATNESS OF GOD’S POWER

God continues to speak through Isaiah, asking his people to gaze up to the heavens and behold one who keeps the stars in their place and the planets rotating around the sun by his sheer might:

To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? Says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name; by the greatness of his might and because he is strong in power, not one is missing. (40:25-26).

God precisely places the planets and stars of the universe where he wants them, by his power. The Institute for Creation Research points out evidence of precision in the design of the universe. For example, they write,

The earth's axis of rotation is tilted 231/2 degrees relative to the perpendicular of the earth's plane of orbit. This tilt causes the four seasons….What would be the effect if the earth had double the present tilt? Temperature extremes between seasons would be much more pronounced. Even the mid-latitudes would have unbearable heat in the summer and frigid cold in the winter. Most of Europe and North America would experience very prolonged darkness in the winter and very prolonged daylight in the summer. Life on most of the earth's surface would become intolerable.

The earth rotates once every 24 hours producing the interval of time called "day". If the earth rotated more slowly, we would have more extreme day and night temperatures. Other planets have "days" which are many times that of the earth, producing scorching daytime heat followed by freezing nighttime cold. The normal daily routine of plants and animals would be impossible if the earth day were much shorter than that of the present. The 24-hour day seems to be optimum, serving to evenly heat the earth (somewhat like a turkey turning on a barbecue spit).

Thus, we could hardly improve on the present arrangement of tilt and rotation, which seems to be planned for both comfort and economy. Our present tilt causes seasons with associated fluctuations in weather, producing a maximum amount of farmable land and pleasant seasons. The present rotation of the earth helps to uniformly heat its surface and cause winds and ocean currents.

God’s power to precisely control the planets and stars is the same power that controls the spread of the coronavirus and every circumstance of our lives! God’s greatness is reason to fall down and worship his majesty!

THE GREATNESS OF GOD TO SUPPLY US WITH THE STRENGTH WE NEED

Isaiah 40 continues,

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. (40:28-31).

What does it mean to “wait upon the Lord?” It means to quietly lean into God—all the way--trusting him because he is A VERY GREAT GOD.

Celebrate God’s majesty today. His vision is not too dim to guide you. His grip on your life is not so tenuous that he will drop you. His power is not too puny to protect you. His arm is not too short to strengthen you. His love for you is not so weak that he will ignore you. And the more you celebrate his majesty, the more your love for him will grow—and the more others will be able to lean on you for strength. 

O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

 

For Further Prayerful Thought:

1. Take a few moments and in your own way worship God for his majesty. Thank and praise him for his GREATNESS.

2.  Why is “wanting only $3.00 worth of God,” i.e. being lukewarm in our passion for him, so inappropriate, so….wrong?

3.  When the circumstances of my life get a little hard, and I find myself mad at God, I feel like I am like the little boy at the grocery store throwing a temper tantrum because his mom won’t buy him the candy bar he wants. How would understanding God’s majesty make my heart more content?