DEVOTIONAL 42: A WEEK OF ADORATION
I thought it might be good to take a day just for adoration. Let’s pause a moment and contemplate how glorious, how holy, and how lovely our Father is, our Lord is, and the Holy Spirit is. This blessed Trinity has been blessing us since before we were born, and a pause to praise them is more than due. I invite you to share your praise or a verse that expresses praise, awe, or wonder at Who He is.
Below are three of my favorite Bible passages that touch on His transcendent glory, might, majesty, and power. I am staggered that the Lord has made all of that available to me to bless me and operate in my life today, and not just in Heaven. One of the things nonChristians express to me after reading my first book is that they did not know that God could operate in such a personal way in today’s times. Yes!! That is part of the Good News. The verses below honor, worship, and acknowledge Who He is!
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He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
Hebrews 1:3
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He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.
4 He determines the number of the stars
and calls them each by name.
5 Great is our Lord and mighty in power;
his understanding has no limit.
6 The Lord sustains the humble
but casts the wicked to the ground.
7 Sing to the Lord with grateful praise;
make music to our God on the harp.
8 He covers the sky with clouds;
he supplies the earth with rain
and makes grass grow on the hills.
9 He provides food for the cattle
and for the young ravens when they call.
10 His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse,
nor his delight in the legs of the warrior;
11 the Lord delights in those who fear him,
who put their hope in his unfailing love.
12 Extol the Lord, Jerusalem;
praise your God, Zion.
13 He strengthens the bars of your gates
and blesses your people within you.
14 He grants peace to your borders
and satisfies you with the finest of wheat.
15 He sends his command to the earth;
his word runs swiftly.
16 He spreads the snow like wool
and scatters the frost like ashes. Psalm 147
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And I love God’s response when Job presses for an answer to why he has suffered. God lets Job know who He is by questioning Job about who he is (emphasis on lower-case “h.”)
The word “awesome” should be reserved for the awe we can feel for the astounding creative and dynamic reach of God Almighty. If we can just for a moment grasp what the following verses say, we should be truly awed by the stunning acts of art, science, physics, and humanity that our Father sets in motion every day that reveal just a glimmer of His power:
“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
6 On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
7 while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels[a] shouted for joy?
8 “Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,
9 when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,
10 when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place,
11 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt’?
12 “Have you ever given orders to the morning,
or shown the dawn its place,
13 that it might take the earth by the edges
and shake the wicked out of it?
14 The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;
its features stand out like those of a garment.
15 The wicked are denied their light,
and their upraised arm is broken.
16 “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea
or walked in the recesses of the deep?
17 Have the gates of death been shown to you?
Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness?
18 Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?
Tell me, if you know all this.
19 “What is the way to the abode of light?
And where does darkness reside?
20 Can you take them to their places?
Do you know the paths to their dwellings?
21 Surely you know, for you were already born!
You have lived so many years!
22 “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow
or seen the storehouses of the hail,
23 which I reserve for times of trouble,
for days of war and battle?
24 What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed,
or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?
25 Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain,
and a path for the thunderstorm,
26 to water a land where no one lives,
an uninhabited desert,
27 to satisfy a desolate wasteland
and make it sprout with grass?
28 Does the rain have a father?
Who fathers the drops of dew?
29 From whose womb comes the ice?
Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens
30 when the waters become hard as stone,
when the surface of the deep is frozen? Job 38:4-30
The entire chapter of Job 4 contains a series of these questions that give Job and us just a glimpse of His awesome power, divine discretion, and ways so far above our ways we can barely glimpse them in our clay-like state of being mortal.
What about you? What verses or observations move you when you think about our awesome God?