“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. . . .We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God"
- A.W. Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy , chapter one, "Why We Must Think Rightly About God," p. 1
We often think of ourselves as more important than we are: we are Aladdin with the lamp, and God is our genie. We think that somehow he HAS to make us happy - that's what we think He's about.
But is God so concerned with our happiness? OK, He does promise to bring us joy and eternal pleasure.
But scripture is clear that God is all about Himself. He knows He's awesome. And He wants us to know that too.
Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth. (Psalm 46:9)
I am the LORD; that is my name!
I will not give my glory to another
or my praise to idols. (Isaiah 42:8)
If I was to go to the Grand Canyon, I could appreciate the scenery. But if I had a tour guide with me to explain to me the awesome geological processes that made it that way, my appreciation of the landscape would increase by a million-fold.
We can walk through life and claim we know God. But we can only KNOW God by reading His word - the Bible. The Bible is the tour guide to our inexpressible God. To find words to describe God we dive into the Bible, pull them out and then speak them back to God. These are the best words about God, because they are God's words about Himself.
Look at the video below. Think about these questions as you watch it:
This is where our true love of Him begins, and where true worship exists.
Don't forget: what you think about God is the most important thing about you.
Say it: what I think about God is the most important thing about me.
- A.W. Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy , chapter one, "Why We Must Think Rightly About God," p. 1
We often think of ourselves as more important than we are: we are Aladdin with the lamp, and God is our genie. We think that somehow he HAS to make us happy - that's what we think He's about.
But is God so concerned with our happiness? OK, He does promise to bring us joy and eternal pleasure.
But scripture is clear that God is all about Himself. He knows He's awesome. And He wants us to know that too.
Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth. (Psalm 46:9)
I am the LORD; that is my name!
I will not give my glory to another
or my praise to idols. (Isaiah 42:8)
If I was to go to the Grand Canyon, I could appreciate the scenery. But if I had a tour guide with me to explain to me the awesome geological processes that made it that way, my appreciation of the landscape would increase by a million-fold.
We can walk through life and claim we know God. But we can only KNOW God by reading His word - the Bible. The Bible is the tour guide to our inexpressible God. To find words to describe God we dive into the Bible, pull them out and then speak them back to God. These are the best words about God, because they are God's words about Himself.
Look at the video below. Think about these questions as you watch it:
- How small are you?
- How big is God?
This is where our true love of Him begins, and where true worship exists.
Don't forget: what you think about God is the most important thing about you.
Say it: what I think about God is the most important thing about me.
We need to increase our understanding about how great and majestic God is. We need to learn new ways of expressing these truths. Why? Because our concept of God's awesomeness is limited by our expression. We need to learn new words, fresh ways of worshiping God, by mining the Bible and finding how people described him all those years ago. I think they were on to something, and that something is what Christian teens and Christians today need to rediscover.
