View of God: Is Yours High or Low?

What is your view of God?

Is it like this:

I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.  And one called to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”

 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.  And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost;  I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar.

Isaiah 6:1-6 ESV

Or, when you think of God and Jesus, is it more like this:

“Left to ourselves we tend immediately to reduce God to manageable terms. We want to get Him where we can use Him, or at least know where He is when we need Him.

. . . a God we can in some measure control.

We need the feeling of security that comes from knowing what God is like, and what He is like is of course a composite of all the religious pictures we have seen, all the best people we have known or heard about, and all the sublime ideas we have entertained.”

A.W. Tozer in The Knowledge of the Holy

What difference does our view of God make?

Quite a bit.

I was praying one day, and distractions kept cropping up.

Did I pull out meat from the freezer for dinner?

Was that the dryer pinging?

Did I put that letter out for the mail?

I forgot to answer that email!

With each reminder, I bounded out of my prayer chair and took care of it.

The mere two minutes, maybe five, the chore took wouldn’t matter.

I knew God would wait.

Wouldn’t He?

Leaning back in my chair, I thought a little bit more about the Creator of the Universe.

If I viewed Him as a real King, would I treat Him like this?

(Time to start squirming).

This is what came to mind:

Let’s say I was being presented to Queen Elizabeth II. She was waiting for me on her throne as I made my way up a long aisle wearing my best clothes and focused on the queen.

But what if, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a beautiful hat. Would I stop and admire it, congratulating the wearer on such style?

If I caught myself–remembering why I was there– and continued up that long aisle on a red carpet, would I pause and ask a gentleman on the right to suggest a restaurant for dinner?

If I suddenly felt chilly, would I run back to grab my sweater out of the car?

How would my behavior honor the queen?

Perhaps she would call for my head instead of waiting for me to kneel before her?

Why do I treat God like that?

How does my view of God determine who I worship?

He was before all time. He flung the stars across the open universe and called light into being.

God looked across the expanse of history 13.7 or so billion years ago and began the work of creation.

He created Black Holes and dwarf stars, muskrats, and dinosaurs.

He stared across human history and put together your genes and mine, setting us into a time and place where our gifts, talents, and abilities could best be used for His glory.

But at the same time, He knew us to the marrow of our bodies and souls.

That’s a pretty big God–and one so glorious that the prophet Isaiah fell at his face when he caught a glimpse.

The angels cried, “holy.”

Who can disagree?

What’s a low view?

Jesus is my buddy. He’s my friend. The gentle Jesus meek and mild so often portrayed to make God palatable for children often seep into adult faith.

A low view of God, as Tozer pointed out, usually focuses on Jesus–the human form of God.

The problem is, too many of us don’t spend as much time studying the Old Testament God as the Gospels.

The Old Testament is too hard to understand–God too often seems capricious and not loving like Jesus.

Is the fault God?

Or our concept of God?

Isn’t it easier for us to worship a God who, as Tozer pointed out above, is more like me than I am like Him?

That’s what the Greeks did–their gods were just “bigger” humans with the same appetites and temptations.

But God is not like us. Before Him, we should feel undone.

Before Jesus, too, which should bow in gratitude and humility.

And that Holy Spirit? He may be the comforter, but he’s part of that trinity Godhead. He was there at the beginning and will be there orchestrating events at the end.

We’re not dealing with a god of wood or stone whom we can move around and manipulate for our own ends.

Yes, because Jesus died on the cross, we can approach God without an intermediary.

Who, then, can approach God?

Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord?
Or who may stand in His holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol,
Nor sworn deceitfully.
He shall receive blessing from the Lord,
And righteousness from the God of his salvation.

Psalm 24:3-5 NKJV

My personal view of God makes a difference

Why?

Who really cares but God and me?

How I approach God, how I view God, how I speak about Him does matter.

It reflects if I honor Him or not.

My words shout of my reverence or lack of reverence for Him.

My attitudes turn into my theology which affects everything in my life.

I aim for a high view of God and begin my prayers by remembering just who I’m speaking to.

Psalm 139 places me well.

It shows how much He values you, too.

Yes, He does love us. Yes, Jesus died that our sins might be forgiven forever. The Holy Spirit came when Jesus returned to the Father so we could always have Him with us.

But God is holy, and we are not.

Let us fall on our knees before our Lord, God, our Maker, and our Creator, our Redeemer, and the Lover of our Souls.

He’s listening. He’s waiting.

And His love never ends.

Thanks be to God.

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