Ephesians 3:20,  Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever!  Amen!

We serve such an incredible God and He is beyond our comprehension on every level!  He is able to do more than we ask or imagine because He is more than we can possibly imagine!  He loves you beyond any love you can possibly comprehend.  He creates things out of nothing, including us and He can lift up or tear down.  He knows everything, nothing escapes His notice whether it is good or bad.  He knows every move of everything including a tiny ant.  He is everywhere and He has all power.  He is the only God.  He is the God who heals.  He is the God who calls out the end as well as the beginning.  There is nothing that can stand in His way on any level or under any circumstance whether that is cancer or a world leader or your finances.  Nothing is too big for Him, they are all small things to our God.  He is holy and He deserves our praise and respect.  He is merciful and just and He is our deliverer.  He cares beyond anything you can possibly imagine about the good times as well as the bad.  

Something that really struck me this morning is that even though we can know all of that in the back of our minds somehow we have often taken God’s grace so far that we have put Him in a box.  Please stay with me a moment on this:  we know the attributes of God and we love to acknowledge His love which is so amazing and I am not making little of that by any means but take a look at these verses in Isaiah 45, “You heavens above, rain down my righteousness; let the clouds shower it down.  Let the earth open wide, let salvation spring up, let righteousness flourish with it; I, the Lord, have created it.  Woe to those who quarrel with their Maker, those who are nothing but potsherds among the potsherds on the ground.  Does the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you making?’  Does your work say, ‘The potter has no hands?’……..  “  The point is that even though we know that God’s grace is beyond our comprehension and His patience with us is amazing He is still a holy and mighty God!  I have heard many times over the years people say, “it’s ok if you lash out in your anger at God because He can handle it” and yes, He definitely can, but we need to be careful that we aren’t reducing who He is and who we are talking to.  I don’t know about you, but I certainly didn’t allow my children to talk to me any way they chose because they were angry, I still expected them to talk to me with respect.  Why would we think that God deserves any less?  

When we take the amazing grace that God has given us and we turn that into something that reduces God down to our level so we can treat Him however we choose we have lost sight of who He is!  Here’s one of the problems with that:  when you lose sight of all that He is how can you possibly have faith in Him?  How could you possibly treat Him without respect and yet believe in His healing power?  He deserves our honor and respect and praise!  He loves us so much and He has extended His grace and mercy to us in such a magnificent way that we can’t even comprehend it and we should love and respect Him enough to honor Him in all that we do and say.  We may get angry and frustrated in our lives and through the storms, but we still need to go to Him with the respect He deserves because of who He is.  Ephesians 4:26, “Be angry and do not sin”. Our faith can only grow when we have a full grasp of who God is but trying to drag Him down to our level certainly doesn’t do that.  Have you ever seen a parent who allows their child to talk to them like they are somehow on the same level?  Children who are allowed to do that are insecure and grow into angry frustrated little people because they feel as though no one is really in charge.  It is the same with us; if we treat God as though He can be talked to any way we choose because we are having a bad day or don’t like what is going on it diminishes our faith because in our mind we have put Him on the same level we are on.  Satan likes to distort everything and it seems as though He has taken the grace of God and turned it into something that reduces who God is in our minds instead of something that exalts Who He is.  His grace should drive us to show more respect, not less.  His love should drive us to love Him more, not developing an attitude of complacency about who He is.  If we allow our opinion of Who He is on any level to drop then we are opening ourselves up to a downward slide in our faith.  If we want to develop our faith then we must develop our respect and understanding of who He is.  Knowing and respecting God does not on any level diminish how much He loves you and cares for you.  If you fully grasp who He is then your understanding of His love for you will grow.  Don’t buy satan’s lies that somehow if you show God respect and honor Him that you aren’t loved by God.  That’s so silly and yet satan has pushed Christians to somehow believe that we can’t talk about treating God with respect because people will only be drawn to God by somehow bringing Him down to a human level.  If you look back over history since the beginning the draw to any ‘god’ was seeing that ‘god’ as powerful even to an unhealthy level when it was any other ‘god’ than our one and only true God.  Let’s not diminish who God is.  Let’s honor Him in all that we do and say.  Let’s ask Him for more faith and understanding of who He is so we can grow in our faith and love for Him.  My prayer this morning is that as you read this you will fully grasp His love for you and that you will see Him as the loving, caring parent and Holy God that deserves all of your love and respect, trusting that truly His best is yet to come!  

Quote:  “All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.”  ~ Helen Keller