O God, help me to honor You the way that You deserve to be honored. You are worthy and majestic, give me the eyes to see Your glory, and the lips to proclaim it. Truly awesome is Your name.
“I will extol You, my God, O King, and I will bless Your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless You, and I will praise Your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord and highly to be praised, and His greatness is unsearchable.” (Ps. 145:1-3) Ours is a God of wonder! He is unfathomably deep and yet infinitely worth searching out. How can we define our wondrous God? Who is qualified to even describe Him? For a creature as lowly as man to attempt a complete description of this awesome God would only constrain Him to a finite size. What language or what words could possibly summarize our infinite God? Is there no one worthy of the task? O how lamentable we are as people, inept and incapable on our own for such a grand task. Our dilemma is accentuated when you consider the scriptures teaching: “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” (Jn. 17:3) That sounds easy enough until we remember God’s proclamation: “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live.” (Exo. 33:20) How can we “know” He who is by nature unperceivable and indescribable?
I am reminded of a scene in heaven that is told in the book of revelation. God on his throne holds a book while an angel proclaims, “Who is worthy to open the book and break its seals?” (Rev. 5:2) The apostle John begins to weep with sorrow, because there is no one in heaven or on earth who was found worthy to open it, or even to take a peek inside it. We find ourselves in a similar situation. We long and desire to look into the mysteries of God that we might know Him truly; but who is qualified to see the fullness of those mysteries and relate them to us? We return again to Revelation for the answer: “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.” (Rev. 5:12) The lamb, Jesus Christ is worthy! He is worthy both of opening the book in Revelation (Rev. 5:9) and also of searching all the truth of God (Jn. 3:11)! In His gospel account, the Apostle John records: “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” (Jn. 1:18)
What does all this mean? It means that a light has dawned in our hopelessly bleak situation. To put it plainly, through knowing Jesus Christ we can and will come to know God Himself. Through knowing Jesus we come to know the Father (1Jn. 2:23) and realize that the Father’s word is not just some dead history book, but rather the means by which He has chosen to reveal His nature to us. Through faith in Jesus we know the Bible was written by God Himself (though it was penned by mere men, they were carried along by the Holy Spirit as they wrote – 2Tim. 3:16, 2Pet. 1:21). Through knowing Jesus we are filled with this Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit plays a key role in understanding and portraying the truths of God’s nature. “For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.” (1Cor. 2:10) Amazingly, these three witnesses (the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit) are one and the same God who works in unison to bring about our salvation (Titus 3:4-7). All this put together equates to one inescapable fact. The only way we can know God adequately is through His own self-revelation. Put simply, the only way to know God is by God.
Once empowered to know God, by He Himself, we become capable of expressing His glory. Verbiage is formed on our tongues from the overflow of burning hearts that marvel in the sovereign King of the universe. Exaltation is the native tongue of those who see greatness. O to gaze in wonder upon His glory! On that account, let us all search His word diligently, with a prayerful eye to see that glory unfolded within its pages. There we will find Christ’s portrayal of His Father and the Holy Spirit’s description of His majesty. Only there will we find the language worthy of His praises.
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