September 10, 2018

God Is Worthy of Worship

By Peter Amsterdam

Audio length: 11:25
Download Audio (10.4MB)

Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and His greatness is unsearchable.¹

God is infinite, while we are finite beings, and therefore He is infinitely greater than we are. We are unable to fully understand the greatness of God, as it can never be fully known. His understanding is beyond measure, and His ways and thoughts are so much higher than ours.² His riches, wisdom, knowledge, and judgments are unsearchable and unfathomable; they are all beyond our ability to fully understand.³

When Job was speaking of God’s great acts in creating the world, he said that these acts were only a whisper of His power, the mere edges or fringes of His ways. Behold, these are but the outskirts of His ways, and how small a whisper do we hear of Him! But the thunder of His power who can understand?⁴

As finite beings, we will never be able to fully understand all of God’s ways or His greatness, neither will we ever know all that God knows. This helps us to realize that God alone is God; He will always be infinitely greater than we are, and as part of His creation we owe Him worship and adoration.

Knowing God

And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.⁵

We will never know all that God is, or all He knows and does. However, He has made Himself known to us in such a way that we have entered into relationship with Him. And this is eternal life, that they know You the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.⁶

God is both infinite and personal, therefore we’re not limited to only knowing facts about God—we know Him personally and are in personal relationship with Him. While He has no limitations whatsoever and is far greater than everything that exists, He is also a personal being who interacts with us personally and whom we can relate to as a person. We speak to Him and He speaks to us. We commune with Him, He interacts with us, answers our prayers, and dwells within us.⁷ We have this relationship with God because of the gift of salvation given to us through Jesus’ death and resurrection, one of the most important reasons we should worship God.

Seeing God

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.⁸

Scripture makes it clear that God is Spirit and cannot be seen by humans. No one has ever seen Him, meaning His true essence and all that He is. While He has shown Himself at various times in a visible form, known as a theophany, no one has ever seen Him as He is.

But while no human has seen God, Jesus—God the Son—has both seen the Father and has made Him known.

Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me—not that anyone has seen the Father except He who is from God; He has seen the Father. Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father.⁹

In “seeing” Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, God the Son, we see the Father. We “see” Jesus within the pages of Scripture. We hear the words He spoke, His teaching; we see His interaction with others, the love, mercy, compassion, wisdom, power, and oneness with the Father that He had. Jesus was God walking on earth, and in Him we see the visible image of the invisible God. He existed with the Father before anything was created, and through His incarnation we understand what God is like.

God revealed Himself in His Son, who came to earth to walk among us, and in so doing made it possible for us to enter into an eternal relationship with God. Because of the free gift of salvation, we will have the privilege and the great joy of seeing Him face to face. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.¹⁰

God has made Himself known in His Son, and in Him we see the Father. The time will come when we will see God. All of this is possible because Jesus sacrificed His life for us, which makes Him and His Father worthy of our worship.

God’s knowledge

God is greater than our heart, and He knows everything. For He looks to the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens.¹¹

Scripture tells us that God is perfect in knowledge and knows everything, and therefore He is omniscient or all-knowing. God knows all things that exist and all things that happen. There is nothing hidden from Him in creation.¹²

God also knows the future, everything that will happen. I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, “My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all My purpose.”¹³

Truthful and faithful

The Lord is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King.¹⁴

All of God’s knowledge and words are true and are the standard of truth. Everything God knows and thinks is true, and is the correct understanding of reality. He is never mistaken in His perception or understanding of the world, and He is perfect in knowledge^.¹⁵ God always speaks the truth; He cannot lie.¹⁶ Because God doesn’t lie, He can be trusted and is always faithful, He always does what He has promised, and we can depend on Him to never be unfaithful to His promises.

God is not man, that He should lie, or a son of man, that He should change His mind. Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not fulfill it?¹⁷ Our God is true and faithful, and we can always trust Him. He deserves our worship.

His power

For nothing will be impossible with God.¹⁸

God is omnipotent, meaning all-powerful. He is able to do all of His holy will. He has the power to do what He decides to do.

The Lord is called the Almighty: “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”¹⁹ The Greek word used for Almighty is pantokrator, which means He who holds sway over all things; the ruler of all. The power of the Almighty is infinite. He is not limited in what He can do.

Nothing is impossible for God. God can even choose to become incarnate, to be born of a virgin, and redeem humanity, which, in fact, He did. God’s unlimited power made it possible for us to receive salvation, something we should constantly worship Him for.

The sustainer

In His hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.²⁰

God not only created the world, but He sustains it, as all of creation is dependent on Him for its existence and its functioning. He Himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything … for “In Him we live and move and have our being.”²¹

Scripture tells us that all things were created through Christ and that He holds all of creation together; He upholds the universe.²² The universe and all that is in it continues on as we know it because God is our sustainer, and for this He is worthy of our worship.

Redeemer and Savior

When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.²³

God is our Savior and Redeemer. Through His plan of salvation, we who are unworthy have received His grace and mercy. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.²⁴

Because of God’s love, mercy, compassion, and grace, we have entered into everlasting relationship with Him. We are redeemed, saved, adopted as His children. In our deep gratitude and love for this great privilege we should continually ascribe to the LORD the glory due His name; worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness^.²⁵

Originally published May 2014. Adapted and republished September 2018.
Read by Gabriel Garcia Valdivieso.

¹ Psalm 145:3. Unless otherwise indicated, all scriptures are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

² Psalm 147:5; Isaiah 55:9.

³ Romans 11:33–34.

⁴ Job 26:14.

⁵ 1 John 5:20.

⁶ John 17:3.

⁷ John 14:23.

⁸ Colossians 1:15.

⁹ John 6:45–46; 14:9.

¹⁰ 1 Corinthians 13:12.

¹¹ 1 John 3:20; Job 28:24.

¹² Hebrews 4:13; Matthew 10:29.

¹³ Isaiah 46:9–10.

¹⁴ Jeremiah 10:10.

¹⁵ Job 37:16.

¹⁶ Titus 1:2.

¹⁷ Numbers 23:19.

¹⁸ Luke 1:37.

¹⁹ Revelation 1:8.

²⁰ Job 12:10.

²¹ Acts 17:25, 28.

²² Colossians 1:16–17; Hebrews 1:3.

²³ Galatians 4:4–5.

²⁴ Colossians 1:13–14.

²⁵ Psalm 29:2.

Posted in: audio, bible, peter amsterdam, praise and thanksgiving, relationship with the lord

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