View of God

Mark Batterson post (excerpt):  A Primal Thought: Day 9

Chapter 9: Potential Energy

Our biggest problem is our small view of God. Every other problem is a symptom. A big view of God is the cure.

On a bad day, we tend to reduce God to the size of our greatest failure, biggest problem, or worst fear. On a good day, we tend to reduce God to the size of our greatest gift, highest hope, or best attribute. But either way, we are creating God in our image. And what we end up with is a super-sized version of ourselves. A god who is just a little bigger, a little stronger, and a little wiser than we are. But in reality God is infinitely better than your best thought on your best day. In fact, your best thought on your best day is at least 15.3 billion light-years short of how good and how great God really is.

So what does a small view of God have to do with loving God with all of your strength? Well, at its core, loving God with all of your strength really means loving God with all of His strength. It’s not about what you can do for God. It’s about what God can do in you and through you. Few things are more thrilling than doing what you didn’t think could be done. And it’s not just thrilling for you. It’s thrilling for God. Like a proud parent, our heavenly Father loves it when we do impossible things by His power and for His glory. Loving God with all of your strength is living in raw dependence upon His power. And when you live in raw dependence upon His power, you will do things that cannot be done.