How Great Is Our God

"Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand,

 and marked off the heavens by the span,

and calculated the dust of the earth by the measure,
  

 
and weighed the mountains in a balance and the hills in a pair of scales?

Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or as His counselor has informed Him?

To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare with Him?

Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

 

It is He who sits above the circle of the earth,

and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers,

Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.

Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these stars,

The One who leads forth their host by number,

He calls them all by name;

Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power,

not one of them is missing.

Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth;

For I am God, and there is no other. 

I have sworn by Myself, the word has gone forth from my mouth in righteousness and will not turn back,

that to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance."

Isaiah 40:12-13,18, 21-22, 26; 45:22-23

The Lord Reigns

 

Today, while reading through different Psalms in prayer, I came across a favorite of mine: Psalm 93. It starts out like this:

"The Lord reigns, He is clothed with majesty; the Lord has clothed and girded Himself with strength; indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved."

That's verse 1. There's quite a bit of truth packed into that one verse, isn't there? This afternoon, as I started reading it, the first three words jumped out to me.

The Lord reigns.

Yes. I understand that most of you reading this already know that God Almighty reigns. So then, why is this important?

As I re-read that little phrase this afternoon, a question flashed across my mind.

What significance does this phrase have on my life?

I picked up a pen and my notebook and began jotting down some notes. (I find that my thoughts come much better when I'm writing them down.) I found that this simple phrase holds much more weight than I first imagined. The following are my notes from this afternoon's study.

According to Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary, the word "reign" means:

• to possess or excercise sovereign power or authority
• to rule
• to hold the supreme power

The Lord reigns. He holds supreme power and authority over everyone and everything.

But how does this affect us? There are two categories....

Because the Lord reigns, we don't need to and shouldn't:

• fear or worry about anything. If He is in control, what do we have to be fearful of?
• complain or grumble in any situation. What does complaining do? It shows dislike of our circumstances. But who caused or allowed those circumstances? Yes, the Lord...the One who reigns over all.
• doubt the Lord. When we doubt His power or love for us, we are undermining who He is.
• be angry with anyone or anything. Yes, I understand there is such thing as holy anger, but that's not what I'm referring to. Again, our anger shows our dislike of a person or situation. But doesn't the Lord rule over your life? Doesn't He work all things to the good of those who love Him?
• follow anyone else. As King of Kings, the Lord deserves our complete allegiance. Would the president be pleased if he found out you were a traitor to your country? No, of course not. That's an incredibly serious crime. And yet, we continue to show disloyalty to our Lord and King by disobeying Him and following our fleshly desires. We need to see our King for who He is and our sin for what it is.

Because the Lord reigns, we need to and should:

• serve Him with complete devotion. As was already addressed above, this should be our natural and immediate reaction to Him.
• love and adore Him as the just and merciful King that He is. What other King is like our Lord? Has any other king died for you, purchased you from the enemy with his life's blood, and has now adopted you (a former traitor to his kingdom) into the royal family as his son/daughter? What God is like our God? Love and adoration should pour from our lives, when we realize how much He has given and what we deserve. 
• obey His commands with joy. If you loved your gracious King because He had saved you from death, wouldn't your natural response be to obey His commands...and not only to obey them, but to do them wholeheartedly?
• rejoice in all circumstances. Again, if all situations come from His hand and are a part of His great plan, why would we do anything but rejoice? 
• stand victoriously against the powers of hell. Our King not only reigns over everything, but has proved Himself victorious over the powers of hell. If we are "in Him" as Scripture says, then we can stand against any temptation or attack in His strength, knowing that our Lord already defeated the enemy 2,000 years ago.
• place all of our trust in Him. There is no one like our great King. Why would we want to trust in anyone else?
• worship and praise Him for who He is. He deserves our every word, every thought, and every action. Let us praise Him and give Him the glory that He alone is worthy of.
• rely on Him for our every need. Our King will supply our every need, but we must ask Him according to His will. And when we do, He will be faithful to provide.

The Lord reigns.

3 words with a weighty calling. Doesn't it leave you a bit speechless?

The following quote is an eloquent reminder of what the response of our hearts should be. May it be yours today, dear reader.
 
 “Come, Lord, and abide with me. Come, and occupy alone the throne of my heart; reign there without a rival, and consecrate me entirely to thy service.” ~ Charles Spurgeon