God had recently led me to read the Bible in 90 days. In the week following I prayed to Him and reflected over what I had read the preceding 3 months and God showed me a couple of different things. As you read the Word of God this rapidly you see things a little differently than you do when you focus on specific passages, you see the overall plan of God unfold before your eyes. Just a few words about the Bible, 2 Peter 1:21 tells us in talking about the Bible that “holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit”. In other words God used these men as instruments to write His Words. Just like you would use a pen, pencil, or computer to write what you want to convey to someone else, God literally used these men to write His word. The Bible is written by men inspired by the Spirit of God, it is literally God breathed, the Bible is God’s Words given to man. The Bible is amazing; it is 66 books, written over a period of 1500 years, by 40 different authors, on 3 different continents, written in 3 different languages. Most were separated by hundreds of years, yet the Bible is amazing in its clarity of meaning and how the story line flows throughout scripture unhindered, and you really see this when you read it through quickly.
That brings me to what I would like to talk about today, God. People often try to attribute human qualities to God. People will say, I cannot believe in a God who would send a man to hell for telling a lie. That’s because you’re not like God. God is so incredibly different than us. The same person who would say, “I cannot believe in a God who would send someone to hell”, will curse someone with obscenities for mistakenly cutting them off in traffic. Once again, that’s because you’re not like God; there is a beautiful passage in the book of Isaiah that explains this, and became vivid to me when I was watching a video message given by Frances Chan. It speaks of the attributes of God in words that we can understand, in how different He is than us. “’For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,’ Says the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.’” (Isaiah 55:8-9).
Let us take goodness for example, God is good, God is literally goodness. People have a measure of goodness but the goodness of God is so far and above anything that a human mind could possibly comprehend. God’s goodness is perfect, “as the heavens are higher than the earth,” His goodness is above our goodness. The Bible tells us that no man has ever seen the face of God, (ref. John 1:18) and there is a reason for that, God loves you. God is so extremely good, to see Him in His glorified state would destroy a man. No man could look on the face of God and live, He is that much above us. Comparing God to man is like comparing an Elephant to an Aphid. While the Elephant is currently the largest land animal the Aphid is a tiny insect that you need a magnifying glass to be able to see on a plant. I use the law of God often in my writings and in my witnessing with people, and there is a reason for that. For a person to accept the Savior they need to be able to see their state before Him. The Apostle Paul said that the law was the Tutor to bring us to Christ (Ref. Galatians 3:24), it quite literally is the school master as C. Spurgeon puts it, the law teaches you of your state before God, that you are in need of salvation. That is why it is such a tragic state of affairs for anyone to ever think that they could ever earn favor with God by keeping the law. Our best is so far below His mark it is not within millions of miles from hitting the mark. Take archery for example: God is so precise with His goodness He is splitting arrows in the middle of the bulls eye on a target two million miles wide and we at our best might barely nick the outer ring one million miles from the center. The word sin is an old archery term yelled out when you were off the mark, “for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). We all fall short every time, even at our very best we fall short, we are not even aware of how short we are. That is why it is futile, the law simply gives you knowledge that you are sinful, at your best efforts you will never match the goodness of God.
Then you take the things God thinks of. When Adam sinned God cursed the earth, I wouldn’t have thought of that. When the whole world fell into debauchery, He flooded the earth and spared Noah and His children along with some animals; I wouldn’t have thought of that. God picked out Abraham, a simple Sheppard, which his descendents would become the vessel by which He would send His Son into the world; I wouldn’t have thought of that. God gave His only begotten Son to redeem mankind; I wouldn’t have thought of that. Jesus was born in a manger to two very simple people, a young virgin and a carpenter; I wouldn’t have thought of that. His one and only precious Son; begotten is the best translation, it literally means out of. Jesus literally came out of God, He is of God, He is God. Think about this for a minute; this is the same world in which men and women curse the Creator and His creation daily, this is the same world that people are murdered in by the millions (six million Jews in the Nazi holocaust, 54 million abortions since Roe vs Wade), this is the same world in which the rich crush the poor, that people die of starvation while others deal with obesity, this is the same world in which people abuse their own children and spouses and leave them to fend for themselves after they have been destroyed psychologically. This is just a few examples, but that is the world in which God sent Himself into, His only begotten Son, His precious Son. He sent Him knowing He would be cursed, mocked, beaten, and hung on a cross to die by the very people He was redeeming. I would not have thought of that. Take hell, outer darkness, a lake of fire where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth where the beast, the false prophet, and Satan will be along with any that are not found written in the book of life; I wouldn’t have thought of that. Would you have thought of that?
I can say this with certainty; God is much much much different than us. “’For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,’ Says the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.’” (Isaiah 55:8-9). So the next time you try to Judge God by human standards, just remember, He is not like us, not even close. I hope this has blessed you. Worship God in the spirit because He is spirit, rejoice always in Jesus Christ because He is our Savior, and have no confidence in the flesh because you cannot earn your way.
Repent and Trust in Jesus Christ as Lord,
Mike Peek
