Majesty Refocused

Dear Church,

I have been asking the Lord what He desires me to write and today I have not been able to escape the word Majesty. I thought I was going to be writing about something different. But I feel like God has other plans this week. So let me jump in.

Have you ever thought about what it means for God to be majestic in all His glory? We should know what it feels like to come in contact with His glory the moment of our salvation. Allow me to explain.

• He reveals to us just how worthy He is to save us from our sins at the moment of our salvation.
• We know in that moment only the King of the universe could save us from eternal punishment forever.
• We know in that moment nothing is too heinous for Him to fully forgive and wipe clean from our record.
• We know in the moment of salvation God shows us how wonderful He is and how majestic His name truly is in all the earth. This compels us to believe in Him as our only way to heaven.
• We know in that moment God is more than just a being. He is a living source of new life.

If I am honest, I look at the world of “church” around me and I feel we have allowed ourselves to forget how majestic our great God truly is. With the state of affairs in our nation and our world right now, there is so much turmoil and so much bickering. Unfortunately, a lot of it is being fueled by persons who claim to be followers of Jesus and His teachings. This must not be so. We (the church) have gotten so bogged down by mindless divisions, arguments, and theological trivialities. These things should have no place taking precedent in our hearts over the purest teachings of Jesus. God sent Jesus (as a physical man) to us so we could know those things which we are to place our fullest attention on. Jesus taught us to focus on the following list of things below so they could embody our identity and build up the church:

• Loving our neighbor as much as we love ourself. (Matthew 22:39)
• Caring for widows and orphans in their distress. (James 1:27)
• Keeping ourselves unstained from the world. (James 1:27)
• Loving justice, mercy, and kindness towards all. (Micah 6:8)
• Walking humbly with our God. (Micah 6:8)
• Letting our love be genuine by abhorring evil and clinging to all that is truly good coming from Christ. (Romans 12:9)
• Rejoicing in hope and being patient in trials. (Romans 12:12)
• Contributing to the NEEDS of the saints around us. (Romans 12:13)
• Blessings on our persecutors and not curses. (Romans 12:14, Luke 6:27)
• Giving the shirts on our very body to the one who steals our coat. (Luke 6:29)
• Showing mercy to others like God showed to us. (Luke 6:36)
• Judgment-free towards people so we will not be judged by God. (Luke 6:37)
• Forgiving even the evilest of offenders. (Luke 6:37)
• Proclaiming liberty to those who are captive and oppressed. (Luke 4:18)
• Rebukers of those within the church walls who persist in doing, living, or holding on to evil. (I Timothy 5:20)
• People who seek to be pure by not taking part in the sins of others. (I Timothy 5:22)
• People who seek to lead each other well by not being so hasty to commission someone for something they are not ready for. (I Timothy 5:22)

All these things and more Jesus taught us, either by His own words or by that of His apostles. Our desire should be such that these statements become true of us. Yet, we still are having trouble becoming the church of Christ because so much of what he taught is not true of us. If we are to even come close to living out the teachings of Christ, then we have no choice but to return to the reality of His majestic name to help us get there.

The beauty of God is that He is not just a supernatural being living in the sky away from man. No, He is holy and He is mighty. God has proven He loves us by living among us as His son: Jesus Christ. The Scripture says nothing on this earth can compare to His worth. When we talk about doing things for God as His church, we can so quickly forget to remember it is all about living our life for the glory of His majestic name. God is not someone who can be bought, sold, or taken advantage of. He is long suffering with all people. But we cannot mistake this long suffering with that of His righteous judgment. The God of the universe is so majestic that He cannot allow a single ounce of evil or unrighteousness to co-exist with Him. We are given a small glimpse into a vision of His glory when we read Isaiah.

When Isaiah was commissioned for His ministry in the Old Testament, he tells us in chapter 6 that he received a vision of God in all His glory. This vision is the closest image in my head (so far) I can think of to help us process the very weight His majesty, glory, and holiness. It says the Lord was sitting on the throne (signifying Kingship). This throne was high and lifted up above ground level (where man walks). The robe He was wearing had a long train that filled the temple. Then, above all this, there were heavenly beings that surrounded the throne of God. These beings had six wings. Two wings covered their own eyes while two covered their own feet. I venture to say the reason for this is because it was too glorious to even look upon God in His purest form. They probably covered their feet because they did not even want to take the slightest chance of stepping on the high ground where He was sitting. Lastly, with the other two wings, these beings came over to Isaiah and bestowed God’s blessing upon him. This effectively commissioned him to go to work for God in the world.

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!”

Wow! How beautiful and beyond comprehension is this imagery we are given about our God from Isaiah? This is the reality of our Lord. He is so glorious and majestic in all He does proving we should not fight with Him or test Him with unrepentant hearts. I believe for too long we have allowed ourselves to cling to a reduced theology of God. I feel we have reduced Him to such a point where He cannot convict us about where we truly stand in our relationship with Him. We may have even allowed ourselves to mold our view of God into one that fits our own viewpoints and worldview. We must recognize God as glorious so we can truly live in His Spirit and He can guide us to live by His teachings and not by our own predispositions.

God does not exist on the level of man’s wisdom, knowledge, or will. This is the picture from Isaiah. He is not at ground level, rather, He is high and lifted up. God is so far above everything we could ever come up with on our own about how to make this world a better place. He is glorious in all His splendor and He is God. He is worthy of our hearts so His Spirit can lead us in accordance with His will. If His wisdom, knowledge, and desires are so much higher and better than ours, then why do we live many times as if we do not believe it? Often times the church is being led by the vision and wisdom of man leaving no room for God to lead.

The full reality of His majesty carries with it a weight of responsibility for His church to be guided by His ways. We must act upon what we know to be the true teachings of Christ and cast off everything that is not of or from Him. If God is so glorious in majesty and holiness that not even heavenly beings could look upon Him, then surely we must recognize anything our God says is final. If there is anything in our lives that has implanted our will above His glory, then it must go immediately. If there is sin in our lives it must go immediately. If God says we take action and give to the poor all we have, so be it. If God says we obey Him, so be it. If God says holiness is the way of His children, so be it. If God says we rest, pray, and fast in Him before speaking into a situation or crisis, so be it. Truly I ask us all: Is His glory worth our fullest attention and devotion?

The beauty of God in all His glory is when we realize the manifestation of it is fully love, fully justice, fully righteousness, fully goodness, fully anti-evil, fully pro-people, fully mercy, fully grace, fully judge, and fully joy. We begin to realize it all exists at the very same time in God Himself. We cannot even begin to comprehend the smallest breadth of what it means for God to be so full of everything we need for every moment. The Scripture says even newborn babies will be able to play with cobra’s and not be harmed once God returns to this earth in all His glory (reference Isaiah 11:8,9). This very realistic picture means that even all of nature that had some kind of evil in it – poisons, stings, sunburns, bites – will instantly cease because God is reigning with fully manifested glory as King.

If this is our God, then why does it appear we are still having trouble living up to the standard He has called us to? Short answer is we cannot live out the values of Jesus’ teachings because we are human, fallible, and capable of getting it wrong on our own. Long answer is because we have been trying to live up to what Jesus taught without the Spirit of Christ at the healm of our lives guiding our hearts and our actions. Many have allowed their mind to be guided with the knowledge and the sight of man. God says our heart is what He is after so His Spirit can lead the way.

Without the Spirit of Christ guiding us, we will get it wrong every single time. We will fall into the trap of religious reasoning/knowledge taking over our mind. Our hearts, in turn, will be corrupting our actions and speech from truly living out the full WORD of Christ. Without the Spirit of Christ, we will become lovers of only His judgment against evil and our heart will fail to instead show mercy first. Without the Spirit of Christ, we will become people who merely speak of good will to one another without actually giving over our lives to each other stemming from the Spirit’s love within our hearts. Without the Spirit of Christ, we will become people who will not be able to suffer well in times of trials and tribulations because our heart does not fully know Him. Without the Spirit of Christ, we will become haughty in our pride and pharisaical in our nature. Without the Spirit of Christ, we will be unforgiving leaving no room for the heart to show grace. Without the Spirit of Christ, we will get caught up in petty quarrels rather than our heart seeking to be peacemakers.

The world needs the church to come alive with both the breath and heart of Christ once again. The time is now for the body of Christ to come into contact with His majesty. Our hearts desperately need to become rekindled by the flame of His glory. Our world is anxious to see and feel the heart of the living God. Only when the hearts of His people truly become captivated by His majestic glory will we see the church begin to act in such a manner that shows the world we are responding to His glory.

Church is made up of people who are a family of spirit-filled persons carrying on the work of Jesus to humanity until God decides to come back. The beauty of the church is that it is an unstoppable force for good and righteous change in the world when God is leading. The beauty of His people coming face to face with His majesty is that it stirs up an undeniable and overwhelming sense of conviction upon the soul of the believer to repent of any wrong. In doing this, we allow our hearts to be so fully used by God that our hands and feet cannot not help but move in the right direction God has chosen.

The greatest gift from God to us is not just His son, but His Spirit choosing to live within the brokenness of man’s sinful heart so He can guide us. God will continue to use His people in order to make the world whole until He returns. He changes one corner of the earth at a time when He has the full heart of His saint.

Let us once again let our hearts be taken captive by the majesty of the God we serve.

We will find strength far beyond our limited, earthly bodily capabilities.

We will find joy and love oozing out of our hearts in a manner we will not be able to contain.

We will find hope and peace in the midst of the storm.

We will find Christ moving the world with the force of His majesty through the hearts and actions of His people. And it will be gloriously unimaginable!