It Starts Small

Psalm 19 was a Psalm written by David. It’s been estimated it was written in his younger years. One of my most perplexing questions I asked myself is how do I get to know God personally? I knew OF God but didn’t know who he WAS. I knew at the start of this journey this was what I needed if anything was ever going to change.

It’s not about what you have stored in your brain. Your knowledge of doesn’t replace the who. We don’t come to God head first, we come to him heart first. You can memorize the entire Bible and still not have a relationship with him. You can attend church every time the doors are open, but you can never know him. You can give to the poor, tithe, and read your Bible everyday, but still not know him personally.

SO how do we know God?

To know him is to trust him.
To trust him is to obey him.
To obey him is to be blessed.

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. ² Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. ³ There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. ⁴ Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, ⁵ Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. ⁶ His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. Psalm 19:1-6

I just moved from one of the most beautiful places I have ever lived. Every monring I would wake and watch the sun rise from the east over the ridge. I was surrounded by hills and great mountains. I never felt like God was too far away looking at the splendor of his creation. Seeing the vast universe and God’s creation is enough to confirm there is a God!

Verse one, the HEAVENS declare the glory of God! If you’ve ever spent time in the mountains of Colorado at the peak of the color change, you just know the beauty of nature declares the glory of God! God’s glory is on display all around us. We get so focused on where we are going that we sometimes forget to look up.

We had very few city lights in our area. The night time sky was something I’d like to say was out of this world! I’ve only seen the sky like that once before. That was at my dad’s place and there are no external lights to pollute the sky. Looking up each night and seeing all those stars was amazing! Catching a shooting star was almost like God was sending a message that said, I’m still here.

God’s greatness shows his handywork! He took nothing and made something of it! His reflection in the natural world around us is a reflection of who he is. He takes the nothing we are and makes something spectacular in us. God spoke everything to existence, just as he speaks our own existence into being.

⁶ By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. Psalm 33:6

God decided what he wanted to create and he spoke his creation into being. Man has never created anything that wasn’t already created by God. All we do is rearrange what God has created. I can not speak an apple into existence any more than I can create more snow to fill the Colorado river. This is a perfect expression of who God is. His word is perfect and unfailing because his laws of nature are unfailing.

¹⁹ Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. ²⁰ For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Romans 1:19-20

God shows us the invisible through the visible. If we truly believe what our eyes can see is the handywork of God, then He promises to show us what can’t be seen with our eyes.

There’s also a fixed order to our universe. The laws that govern the order of the universe is in fact a reflection of the nature of God. God is sovereign and ruler over everything.

¹⁷ Ah Lord God! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee: Jerimiah 32:17

Jerimiah admits and confessed that God is ruler over everything because he made it all. We confuse the term sovereignty with control. This is not true. This term actually means to rule and have authority over. The physical world obeys God’s physical laws. This is because physical objects do not have a will and do not think for themselves. A tennis ball thrown up can’t decide to stop moving, so the natural order is, by gravity, to fall back down to earth. God’s law governs human behavior, but it is human choice to obey or disobey. This is the distinction between humans and the physical world.

God rules the universe by the laws he established. We like to use the term laws of nature. We didn’t invent these rules, God did. The laws he established make the world around us real, observable, and even predictable. Cause and effect was not invented by humans, it was because of of God’s laws of chemical and physical changes we can observe a cause and effect. We can study the world around us and by using test methods measure them, we can observe changes.

Sovereignty doesn’t mean he controls all things, it means he rules over all things. There is al sort of debate among theologians of how God is control. Lets not go there. Instead, today focus on the beauty and splendor around us. Even in the biggest cities we can still see the beauty and splendor of God. Look up, the clouds declare God’s glory. That dandelion growing between the cracks of concrete, declares God’s glory.

How does this reveal God? In all relations, you learn about a person and through learning and understanding you form a layer of trust. In order for us to have a personal relationship with God, we need to learn who he is, not just what he can do. The physical world around us was built by and spoken into existence. God made it. God created us in his perfect image.

²⁷ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. Genesis 1:27

God created us in HIS own image. Our sin does not change our image, it disfigures his image in us. It’s only because man keeps his image of God — even in a broken or distorted form — that man is redeemable and worth redeeming. God reveals that there is nothing we can do to not be redeemed except choose to refuse him. We do not loose our image of God, we just refuse his redemption and redeeming in our lives. We choose to separate ourselves from our creator and that has eternal consequences.

Every single human being, no matter how much the image of God is marred by sin, or illness, or weakness, or age, or any other disability, still has the status of being in God’s image. We take a step closer to God when we glory in his creation. He created you, me and all around us.

We can begin to trust we were made with a purpose in mind. God did not just throw some cells together and call is a man or woman. We can trust he created us to have a personal relationship with him. He wants us to look beyond what he can do, to who he is. He loves us! He loves us so much he created us in his image!