A few weeks ago, I taught a lesson from the book of Nahum. He was prophesizing about the coming destruction of the city of Nineveh because of their willful disobedience and outright turning away from The Lord. In the first few verses of this book, the prophet Nahum describes some characteristics of God that often make us uncomfortable. The ultimate focus of the lesson was that our God is jealous, just, sovereign, and good. While it was a pleasure and an encouragement for me to focus on the goodness of God, I must admit that I had difficulty grappling with those other qualities.
In fact, I really didn’t want to teach that lesson at all and even thought of changing the text to a lesson that I would enjoy teaching. And then, with His goodness and grace (and probably a shaking of His head), Christ adjusted my heart and gave me a desire to focus on who He really is, all of his characteristics and qualities, not just the parts of Him that make me feel good about who I am or whatever problem that I may be facing.
God is jealous. He wants our relationship with Him to be first and foremost in our priorities. It is often times too easy to slip here and allow other things or other people to take over our thoughts, our time, and our finances. We must be on guard and always place Him first in our lives.
God is sovereign. When I pray without faith, when I question and doubt, when I struggle to understand why or how things could happen, I am completely overlooking the sovereignty of our God. He knows all; He understands all; He should be our all in all. In Him, there is no doubt.
God is just. We have a just and holy God who desires us to be obedient to Him and his will for our lives so that we can receive the benefits of life with Him. He is slow to anger and wants each of us to come to repentance. He desires to protect us from the consequences that sin can have on our lives.
God is good. Every single moment. Through the ups and downs of life, in times of sadness and even despair, our God is good. His grace is always sufficient for our needs.
Those first few verses in Nahum overwhelmed me at first. Not every verse in the Bible is easy to take. But sometimes those hard to grasp verses are where true understanding is brought to light. Perhaps like me, you have just wanted to dwell on God’s mercy and grace. But what I learned from this study was that when I only think of our Lord that way, I am limiting Him in my life. I’m limiting the pure majesty and awesomeness of our God, the praise that He so richly deserves, the prominence that He requires in my life, and the reverence that He should feel from my heart each and every day.
My prayer is that we know and understand (as best we can) the fullness of our God. That we give Him the honor and praise He deserves, that we keep Him first in our lives walking in obedience. That we pull away from our doubts and draw nearer to His sovereignty. And that we always remember his goodness and mercy.
Our God is Greater!
