Monthly Archives: February 2024

Incomprehensible God

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When you work hard to know a subject or a skill and perhaps spend years perfecting it, you might be considered to be an expert. People ask you for advice and trust that you will know how to solve the problems in your field. For example, if someone needs to have brain surgery they will ask for a neurosurgeon’s advice, not a physiotherapist’s. If someone needs help with preparing for a Chemistry exam, they are not going to ask a Spanish teacher for help.

Many people have dedicated their entire lives to learn theology, i.e., the study of God. There are many more still doing that. Some, might accumulate an enormous amount of knowledge about God, but not one can be called an expert, because only God is an expert on God. That is correct. I am not going mad. So let’s understand why that is.

God is an infinite God, there is no limit to his character, his knowledge, his holiness, his love, his mercy, his goodness, his faithfulness (you might want to read my post “How Great is our God?”). So it is impossible for any human being to know God completely. Only God knows God completely. We might say that God is incomprehensible.

The Latin word “prehendere” means to grasp or to attain. When the prefix “com” is added to it, it means to grasp a thing in its totality so as to enclose or contain it. When referring to knowledge, comprehension means to know a thing in its entirety. Theologically speaking, to say God is incomprehensible is not to say that God is utterly unknowable. It is to say that none of us can comprehend God exhaustively.

Well, so what is the point of reading the Bible or going to church? Or praising and worshiping? We do that because we can know God. He has revealed Himself to us. Jesus said in John 17:3

“And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent”

We will spend eternity getting to know God. Each day will be like a Christmas morning. A new treasure to learn about his Character. We know God is infinite in His being so we shouldn’t be surprised we cannot know him fully. Who God is, what He does, how and why He does what He does is for us to explore for eternity.

Knowing that we will never be able to comprehend and know God entirely is a good thing for us. It keeps us humble. It reminds us that we are created by God and therefore we have limits. It is hard for us to grasp this truth because since the garden humans were tempted by the devil with the lie that we could be like God and know what He knows.

 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 3:5

We can never know all that God knows. We can only know what He has revealed to us. In His mercy and goodness, God reveals Himself to us in different ways.

God reveals Himself to us through his creation. Romans 1:18-20

18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

God reveals Himself to us through His word. Through each page of the Bible, from creation to the New Heaven and New Earth, each passage, each page is full of God.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” Genesis 1:1 . 

In the book of Exodus 3:14 God said to Moses,

‘I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: “I am has sent me to you.” (my emphasis)

In Revelation 1:8 we read:

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”

Most amazingly God reveals Himself to us through Jesus Christ. Colossians 1:15-20

15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

And in John 14: 8-10 we read:

8 Philip said, ‘Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.’9 Jesus answered: ‘Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.

R.C. Sproul says: “There is a mysterious dimension of God that we do not know. (…) God remains incomprehensible because He reveals Himself without revealing everything there is to know about Him”. 

We read in Deuteronomy 29:29

“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children for ever, that we may follow all the words of this law.”

If we read Job, we will know that God tells him that there are many things God is doing that Job does not know or comprehend. (Job 38 and 39)

In Ecclesiasts 3:11 we read:

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end”.

As we get to know what God revealed about Himself, it is very comforting for us to know that we are completely known by Him.

 1 You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely. 5 You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. We matter to God because He choose to love us. Psalm 129:1-6

God knows everything that there is to know about us because He created us and He loves us with a love that is infinite. Keep on learning about Him.

God bless.

How big is our God?

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I want to start my post today sharing an illustration I have heard many times before. It goes something like this: a little boy asked his father: “Daddy, how big is God?” His father looked around and scratched his head and when he spotted an airplane in the sky he said: “son, can you see that airplane?” “yes” the boy replied. “How big is it?” “the boy tried to use his fingers to measure it and said “about his big”. “So it is quite small would you say?”, his dad said. “The airplane is far up in the sky and it appears small. Let’s go see the plane up close”. The father took the son to the airport and asked if he could see the plane up close. When they were almost under the plane the father said: “how big is the plane now?” The little boy spread his arms across as wide as they would go and said “this big”. The father said to the boy, “the closer you are to God the bigger He is”.

The story above has such a deep truth for all of us. The more we know our God the bigger he becomes. But just how big is our God? At this point, you might be singing the children’s song that says: “My God is so big, so strong and so mighty there is nothing that He cannot do”… The words of this song are true but they do not do justice to how big God is. Our God is infinite. What do we understand by infinite? If you are a Mathematician you may think of this symbol ∞. Some of us might imagine the “Cosmos” (Universe) as something that goes on and on and has no end. The dictionary says infinite is an adjective and it means limitless or endless in space, extent, or size; impossible to measure or calculate.

It is important that we know our God is an infinite God. That means He is not subject to limitation; he is beyond measure, not bound or restricted by space or time. We find it difficult to comprehend this attribute of God because our human minds need to quantify, contain, measure in order to understand and control.

When I step on my scales the first thing I do is: I scream. I then proceed to convince myself I need to take control of the situation and start a diet, join a gym, stop buying biscuits and so on. Does it sound familiar? When I was younger at school when I received my grades for a test I immediately compared it to my peers and if my grade was lower, I felt I needed to do more, or thought that someone else who did better was a know it all kind of person, always getting it right all the time.  If I wanted to go on holiday, I would plan how long the journey would take and how many times we would need to stop to have a break. We also measure people’s characters, they are good or bad depending on how they live. We measure their choices, that was a wise choice if it is something we deem worthy or that was unwise if we don’t.

We cannot contain God or measure Him. The Bible gives us just glimpses of this truth. In the book of Job, Zophar (Job’s companion) asks:

‘Can you fathom the mysteries of God?  Can you probe the limits of the Almighty?
They are higher than the heavens above – what can you do?  They are deeper than the depths below – what can you know? Their measure is longer than the earth and wider than the sea. Job 11:7-9

In Isaiah 40:12 we read:

“Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance?”

Notice how God is portrayed here. Can you see His Majesty? He is holding all the oceans in the hollow of His hand and measuring the heavens (Universe) with the span of his hand. He is holding all the deserts and sand and dust that there is over the Earth in a basket (like a Sainsbury’s basket) on His arm and all the majestic mountains (The Everest, the Himalayas, The Andes, The Rockies) are in His scale. As we can see the measuring tools here are very small and the things being measured are really big! Yet God is much bigger, infinitely bigger than that. He is beyond measuring. He cannot be contained.  The God who cannot be contained sets the limits to his creation. He tells the seas what their boundaries are and the mountains where to stand and each desert where it should be and dry up.

Another thing we notice in Isaiah 40 is that God’s knowledge is limitless. No one has taught Him anything. He was never a member of a subcommittee somewhere where He had to ask for help in how to create clouds or had to have planning permission to put the stars in place. My knowledge of growing things is non-existent.  I can’t even grow tomatoes in my garden without calling a friend for advice. You might be someone who knows a lot of things because you spent a long time learning and acquiring knowledge of a particular subject and you are now considered an expert in your field. God has never set foot in a classroom or been stuck, not knowing what to do, or how to solve a problem. He never had to learn anything. Ever. God’s knowledge is infinite.  

“Who can fathom the Spirit of the Lord, or instruct the Lord as his counsellor?
Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him,  and who taught him the right way?
Who was it that taught him knowledge,  or showed him the path of understanding?” Isaiah 40:13-14

Our God is so much greater than his creation and he is even beyond all the worship we could ever offer Him.

“Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales; he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust. Lebanon is not sufficient for altar fires, nor its animals enough for burnt offerings. Before him all the nations are as nothing; they are regarded by him as worthless and less than nothing.” Isaiah 40:15-17

Even if we could offer God our best worship and all of the worship in the world at once, Isaiah says it wouldn’t be enough for his majesty.  

Then Isaiah poses a question on verse 18:

“With whom, then, will you compare God? To what image will you liken him?”

In other words: Who is like our God? The answer is an emphatic NO ONE! Isaiah didn’t stop there. Verses 21-26 highlight to us God’s stature compared to ours. His majesty and power are so evident it is almost overwhelming.

“Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in. He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. No sooner are they planted,  no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground, than he blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff. ‘To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?’ says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.”

God is not like us. We are measured, we have limits and we are contained. When we are born, we are given a name, our parents receive a piece of paper with the date and time we entered this world and when we die, our loved ones receive another piece of paper stating when we left it.

How big is our God? Infinitely big. That should be a comfort to us. How wonderful to know we can turn away from out limitations to our God who has none. To whom time and space are no barriers. God’s holiness, his power, his mercy, his justice, his faithfulness, his righteousness, his truth, his knowledge, his kindness, his wisdom, his goodness, his love, are all infinite. Even more amazing than that is the fact that He loves us and through His Son has brought us to His family. WOW!

It seems fitting to finish this post with a song that reminds us to “Behold our God“.

God bless.

Photo by Jackson Hendry on Unsplash

Whose story are you telling?

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As a child I was fascinated by the sentence “Once upon a time”. That was all I needed to be drawn to a book. What would this story reveal? Was it going to be good or bad? Who would I meet? What was it all about? Was it going to have a happy end, or a sad one? Or maybe both? What kinds of adventure would I be part of? Where would it take me? I would gladly spend hours trying to find out.

When I was a teenager and became a Christian, I was gripped by different kinds of stories. I was amazed to read how real people had encountered God and how He had transformed their lives. I read the account of Jim Elliot and his friend who were killed whilst in the mission field and how his wife ended up going back to witness to the same people who had killed her husband (Through Gates of Splendor). I read the account of how Joni Eareckson Tada was paralyzed age 17 after a diving accident and was confined to a wheelchair and how she has found joy in the middle of her trials because of Jesus (Joni). I lost myself reading Corri Ten Boom story of how her whole family was devasted by war and the accounts of her time in a concentration camp. I particularly remember the episode about the fleas. How could she have seen that as a blessing? (The Hiding Place).

I found myself wondering time and time again, how could it be possible that there are people that love Jesus that much that they will praise Him and tell their stories to witness about His goodness and His faithfulness. Their stories had great impact in my faith. I wanted to have the same faith they had but I certainly wasn’t anything special. How could I ever tell my story. Nothing dramatic had happened to me that caused me so much pain and suffering. I couldn’t see that anyone would be interested in my story.

That might have been true. In fact it was. I will come back to this.

As I grew older I started taking interest in hearing people’s testimonies. I still enjoyed reading about it, but there was something special about hearing someone say how God changed them. Through years in my church in Brazil I heard people sharing how God had provided for their needs - a cheque posted by a long lost friend that arrived precisely at the moment it was needed and even more amazingly, for the correct amount needed. A broken down car that lead to conversations by the road side that helped someone come to faith. How God had provided the correct medication needed to treat an infection in the middle of a jungle whilst visiting missionary friends. People would talk about God’s goodness and describe “normal” situations, such as passing the entrance exam to a University, a new job, a break from looking after very frail elderly parents to recharge, a new Christian friend at work. I could go on and on. I realised that the people sharing their testimonies were like me. Nothing really dramatic had happened to them. But there was a difference. They were not telling their story, they were telling His.

I thought for a long time no one would want to hear my story because it was not dramatic enough or interesting enough. You see, I was thinking about my life, the little “me”. The people that caught my attention when they shared “their” testimony, they talked about Jesus. How He had written, moulded, changed, perfected, designed their story. This was also true about Jim Elliot (actually, his wife told his story), Joni Eareckson Tada and Corrie Ten Boom. They captivated millions because they talked about Jesus.

The Apostle Paul says in Philippians 1:12-13:

Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard[and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. (emphasis mine)

In John 4:28-30 we read:

Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people,  “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”  They came out of the town and made their way toward him. (emphasis mine)

There are plenty more examples in the Bible and all of them point to how God is writing His story through people’s lives. I understood that I needed to tell the story of how Jesus changed me. How He helped me in the little things every day. How He still loved me even when I didn’t obey His commands or did the right thing. There is a song by Casting Crowns called “Make Room” and the the chorus has a line that says: “Is there room in your heart for God to write His story?” Every time I hear that song it makes me think of Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” God is at work in me.

One day I was asked to share my “testimony” in church and that was the first time I sat down to think of how God was writing His story in my life. No dramatic encounters, no lightning flashing, nothing of the sort. Only the irresistible Saviour breaking down my heart of stone and giving me a new one. Showing me how much I really needed Him and that nothing I could do would bring me to Him. He had come down to Save me. When I finished reading it to myself I could not contain the tears. God is good, merciful, faithful, powerful, Saviour and He loves me. He loves me. I cannot tell my story any more because I am His. My whole life belongs to Him and His story is worth listening to.

How is Jesus writing His story in your life?

Photo by RetroSupply on Unsplash