Incomprehensible God

For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Psalms 103:11-12 KJV 

Can you imagine that? “As far as the east is from the west!” How far can you go east before you find west? Or how far west can you go before you find east? Never. There is no line east or west, that says now you are going in the opposite direction. If you go north, eventually you will cross the North Pole and begin descending south towards the South Pole, but travel east or west, and you can travel forever in that direction. What David was saying when he penned those words, is that God’s work of forgiveness is complete, and our sins are removed from us; forgiven, and forgotten. We may have a memory of them; the choices we made in sin may still affect us, but the sin itself is forgiven and removed by God, never to be required of us again.

How great and how strong is the God you serve? Let us once again look at a Psalm of David. Evidently, he had similar questions: 

Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?  If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee. For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. Psalms 139:7-13 KJV 

Can you begin to fathom what God is like? Travel to the Himalayas in Nepal, and scale Mount Everest, the highest mountain on earth, and you can reach Him in prayer. Descend into the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, if it were possible, and you would find Him there. Not only in prayer but in the awesomeness of creation. View Niagara Falls in New York or Victoria Falls on the Zambia, Zimbabwe boarders and He is more magnificent and powerful than those.

Look through a telescope scanning the millions of stars and other galaxies, and their vastness will tell of His wonders. Dig deep into the earth, and you will find minerals, coal, and precious metals that did not just happen to be there. They tell of something powerful or someone who put them there.

Look at the human body, its function, memory recall, and emotions, and you know that it took more than strength, more than power, to create it. It did not just happen; it was created with super delicate detail.

Who hung the moon in the sky that affects the tides, and what keeps it from shooting off into space? Who placed the sun where it is, a ball of fire, and made the earth circle it at just the right distance to sustain life? Can you figure that out? What kind of strength, planning, and understanding did that take? Are your needs bigger than that?

What about the cycle of life? Humans, animals, fish, plants, and bacteria all have a cycle of life in which they reproduce in perfect order. Humans reproduce humans; animals reproduce the same kind of animals. A cat does not suddenly produce a dog or an elephant; no, they produce what they were created to produce. 

We could go on and on about things that are beyond our human capacity for understanding, and we still would only scratch the surface. Humans can learn about many things in life. You could go to school all your life and continue to learn. You could research a particular field of study and continue to discover new things. We can study God’s word from cover to cover all our lives and still find new ways to apply it, or that it speaks to us. But God created all of this and knows it all. There are no secrets from Him. He never researches to learn or studies to know how something works because He created it.

Just imagine, all the combined knowledge that has ever been gained by human beings on earth is a fraction of what God knows. Unlike humans who learn by trial and error, God just knows everything. He needed no prototypes, no test runs or forethought, He simply created, and His creation worked.

Our minds think in limitations of time and parameters. We have seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, and years. We are born, we live, and eventually, we die. Our lives are made up of goals we try to accomplish, places we travel to, and the ladder of success we try to reach. We are limited in how far we can see, how far we can hear, how far we can throw, how much we can lift, how much stress we can take, how far our earthly love can stretch. These all vary with people, but everyone has limitations. God has none of these; His power, His love, His ability, has no measure and no bounds. He cannot be measured any more than space can be contained.

Our minds cannot comprehend infinity. We cannot comprehend a God who has always been and who always will be.

Humans differ from any other species in this way: they will live forever. Their bodies will eventually come to the end of their lives, but the spirit will live on forever. A part of us, given by God, will never ever die; it is eternal. It is the part of us that is given by God and longs to return to God. In a way, it is the real part of us which lives in a temporary earthly body. That earthly body will die and return to the earth from where it came, but the spirit, which we call the soul, will one day give an answer before God in judgment. Depending on whether you served God or not will determine where you will spend a never-ending eternity. At that time, time as we know it will have stopped, and we will have joined God in His forever and ever state. Really, that time starts at conception when we become a living being. We have no choice in this; it is God’s choice. We can and must choose to give our lives over to Him and the Holy Spirit will come dwell in our hearts to direct and comfort us.

When we consider all of this, how big are your troubles? Are they too big for God? Do you think that He cannot understand you? If so, you need to reconsider who God is, and where the root of those thoughts come from.

We have an enemy of our soul whose plan is to destroy us and turn us away from God. The way he does this is by whispering into our minds that God has limitations; He is not who He says He is, and He really does not know everything. When we give ear to that voice, a subtle deception sets in which aligns with our earthly thinking and fits our “limited view” concept of life. We then begin to think of God in human terms of “limits” and not as an “all-powerful” God, who can do anything.

What we tend to forget is that Satan is already conquered. He may be powerful, but he was also created by God. He is allowed to be, because he is part of the choice given to humans by God, to choose right or wrong, good, or evil. Satan is the darkness that the light drives away, the sin that the blood of Jesus covers, and the liar that truth slays. He is real, and he has power, but his power cannot supersede God. He is a created being, and like humans, will live forever. His judgment is already pronounced, and he is determined to deceive us into following him to the depths of hell. However, he is a defeated foe when we turn to the power of God.

When Jesus died and rose from the dead, conquering death, Satan became defeated. The sin that captivated humanity since the fall in the Garden of Eden no longer has us bound. That debt of sin was paid, and all humankind can now have that same power in their lives to overcome sin and live for God. Jesus took that sin upon himself, and now we, through Him, can experience a new life free from sin and death.

If Satan is defeated, and God is all powerful, why is it so difficult to let God have control of our lives? Our flesh by nature, is earthly and sinful, which is the opposite of God. Satan tempts us to do things that feed our selfish desires. He has had many years of practice, offering people temporary satisfaction, which lasts for a moment and is gone. His temptations are pro-self and anti-God’s authority. It takes no effort to please and live for self; it is natural. To choose God’s way of eternal life, means putting Him first in all we do, loving Him with heart, soul, mind, and strength. It is choosing heavenly treasures that are eternal, over temporary happiness and eternal death.

The choice to serve, or not to serve God is up to us. We must choose the right way; it will make an eternity of difference.