Have you ever caught yourself putting God in a box? Have you limited God to a certain characteristic or idea? A.W. Tozer said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” What you think, about anything, ultimately does express itself in how you live and even more importantly how you view God. For example, if you believe God is stingy and capricious, then you will often live that way too, you’ll never find the joy of generosity.If you believe God is against you, then you’ll often live a life trying to stay out of trouble to please God but may never enjoy God. If you believe God is only love, then you will struggle to reconcile the issues of justice and the evil of our world.
Here’s the good news, as your view of God increases, as you grow in your understanding of God, it will absolutely change you and your life.
What is God like? Where do we even begin? We have to first break down the attributes of God in two ways. Theologians often use two lists when describing the attributes of God:
- God is and we can be (communicable attributes of God) things like love, mercy, compassion, justice, etc. These are all attributes that we can have too.
- Only God is (incommunicable attributes of God) By incommunicable I mean all the ways God is not like us. These attributes set God apart from us.
Based on those two simple points we know two things–we are limited and God is LIMITLESS.
One of the first steps in coming to faith is admitting, “I am not God!” It’s admitting you have limits! And the process of walking with Jesus, is reminding yourself of that all the time!
In Genesis 1, God created humanity in his image and likeness, and while we are called to be like God, to bear his image, we will forever be limited because we will never be God. Our limitations are by God’s design and our limitations were given by God. They remind us all the time that we are not God. Before we can explore the depths of God, we need to start first with a clear understanding of who we are. And you are not God. You have limits.
Fortunately for us, and despite our limitations God is limitless! The God of the Bible is infinite. He cannot be measured, quantified, contained, or bound! Take these scriptures for example:
Is. 40:25, “To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One.”
The answer is absolutely no one! Everything and everyone else in the world can be compared to something or someone but not God!
Psalm 90:2, “Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”
The Psalmist praises God for his creation of the world and His immeasurability. From everlasting to everlasting means God has no beginning and no end. There is no starting or ending point with God. There is no other God like our God
Psalm 145:3, “Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom.”
The reason why God is worthy of our praise is because he is great and no one can fully understand him or his ways. You can learn lots about God, but we can never fully comprehend him. Throughout all eternity, will we be constantly learning more about God!
1 Kings 8:27, “But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!”
King Solomon made it very clear how limited the grand Temple he made to God would be. He says that it would be totally impossible to make a house for God that could even come close to containing all that he is!
All these scriptures boil down to the simple truth that God is infinite and cannot be measured. God is unquantifiable. And God cannot be contained. Here’s what this means to us, don’t limit the God of no limits!
Get your God out of the box and get yourself out of it also!
Pastor Rob Hall 