Grasping the Greatness of God: How to Have Relationship with a God Who Seems Out of Reach
Read Time: 5-7 minutes
“For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; And you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.”
Colossians 2:9-10 (NKJV)
Have you ever thought of the greatness of God? I mean, really thought about it. I don’t just mean how great He is in power, might, and ability, but rather the vastness of His being.
God is a Spirit. He is eternal. He has no beginning and no end. Without ears to hear and a heart to understand, this sounds absurd and unfathomable, but thank God we have the Holy Spirit who bears witness to us (Romans 8:16) and brings understanding of the truth. When I think about God, I think about how all things exist and consist through Him alone; How He has no limitations yet restrains Himself to His word; How He has no lack or deficit in understanding, wisdom, and knowledge because He is all-knowing; I think of the fact that He has no inadequacies because He is perfect in all of His ways.
When I think on these things, I think of those who may be overwhelmed by the greatness of the Great I Am. Whether you’re a believer, unbeliever, or searching, you might wrestle with the questions, How am I to respond, engage, and relate to a God who is so far beyond my understanding, ability, and ways? How can I have a real relationship with a God who seems so out of reach? How can I understand someone I can’t even see?
The answer is Jesus.
Jesus came to this world as the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15). He came to demonstrate the Father’s love and redemptive power (Romans 5:8) to a world of sinners in need of saving. In John 14:9, the Lord Jesus tells His disciple Philip, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” In Jesus, we are able to clearly see a clear demonstration of the nature, character, and power of God. In Jesus, we see that God is not too far off, or too beyond us to relate and have relationship with Him (Hebrews 4:13-15). Through Jesus, we see that this great God is worthy of us giving our lives to Him in total love and surrender, because He is holy and loves us so much that He gave His life for us.
But it doesn’t end there. Not only do we have Jesus, but we have the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is our Helper, Advocate, Counselor, and so much more. In John 16, Jesus explains how He has to leave (this world) in order for the Helper, to come. This Helper, who is the Spirit of God, is present on earth, abiding in Believers to lead us and guide us into all truth. Because of the Holy Spirit, we can have deeper revelation of the mysteries of God and are able to lives led and empowered by the Spirit rather than dominated by our flesh. Holy Spirit is a Gift, and He gives His very own attributes to us as we yield to Him. Isaiah 11 describes Him as the Spirit of wisdom, understanding, power, might, knowledge, and the fear of Jehovah—It’s amazing that who He is is what He gives us!
In addition to Jesus and the Holy Spirit, we have the scriptures of the Holy Bible! The word of God is not just a collection of books. It’s alive and powerful; giving life, divine wisdom, instruction, and clarity to those who seek to know the will of God, and live and love like Jesus. The Bible holds historical, spiritual, and supernatural truth that points it’s readers to one person: YHWH.
Beloved, God is not an unapproachable enigma. He desires to be in relationship with you. He’s gone to great lengths to show Himself to us and invite us into relationship with Him, but this journey to a closer, deeper relationship with Him starts with truly accepting and surrendering to Jesus.
We, who were separated from God because of sin, can only be reconciled and brought into relationship with God through Jesus. In John 14:6, Jesus declares, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” In order for us to be brought into relationship with God, we must put our faith in Jesus and what He did on the cross. Think of it like this: If you go to a palace to visit a king, you have to be escorted to him by the doorkeeper. No one can just approach the throne, UNLESS, you’ve been given access. Jesus is the door (John 10:9). Jesus, through His sacrifice, restored access to the Father so that now, being saved by putting our faith in Him, we can freely approach the Father as sons and daughters, not as outsiders begging for a way to meet the King.
Maybe you’re asking yourself, why is there no other way to God? To that I would say:
1) Jesus is God (John 1:1-16, John 8:58, John 10:30). He is more than a Prophet. Jesus is not dead, He died and He resurrected to justify us from sin, and bring us victory over sin and death. Right now, He is alive and seated at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us (Romans 8:34).
2) Only the blood of a perfect person could atone for our sins. In the Old Covenant, God’s people had to repeatedly sacrifice animals to (temporarily) atone for their sins, however through Jesus’ blood, we have been sanctified and perfected forever (Hebrews 10:1-18). Jesus lived a perfect, sinless life, yet died the death of a sinner in our place, so our sins could be washed away and we could receive eternal life. Ephesians 1:7 says, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.”
3) God gives us eternal life through Jesus alone (John 10:7-30, Romans 6:23). When we understand we are eternal spirits, we understand that we have an eternity to return to. Once we leave these bodies, our life in this physical world comes to an end, but our life in the spirit continues on. Without receiving the free gift of eternal life through Jesus, we’re on a path to death due to our being born into sin. Without repentance of our sins and acceptance of eternal life, we are subject to perish. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23.
4) We are saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9). There are many people who try to find their own path to God or work their way to righteousness, goodness, and holiness, but Jesus is the only way. Why? Because we could never do enough, give enough, or say enough to expunge the stain of our sins. The Bible says that our righteousness is as filthy rags to God (Isaiah 64:6), but God had Jesus, who never sinned, take our place on the cross and pay for our sins so we could become the righteousness of God through Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21). We’re only made righteous through what Jesus did. The only thing God accepts as satisfactory “payment” for our sins is the blood of Jesus. Not your good works, not your good deeds, not your money, possessions, sacrifices—it’s only His blood that satisfies the debt of sin. When we put our faith in what Jesus did on the cross for us, God looks at the blood and sees your debt was “paid in full.” It doesn’t matter how big the balance was, His grace and His blood is enough.
If you want to cultivate a relationship with God, start with Jesus. Let me be the first to tell you you’re not going to understand everything in one moment, one year, or even this lifetime. However, what I hope you understand is that God sees you, knows you, loves you, and desires to have an intimate relationship with you. On this faith journey, we simply continue to pursue knowing God and develop an intimacy that brings us into close relationship with Him. This is not chasing the wind or a fantasy hoping to find something at the end—that’ll leave you empty. Rather, it’s like a marriage. You have already been found and satisfied in your partner and now you’re deciding to do life with this person. Generally you know your spouse when you marry them, at least you know you want to spend the rest of your life with them, but you continue to get to know them, learn them, love them, and understand them deeper as you keep pursuing intimacy and relationship with them over your lifetime. That is what it’s like to have a relationship with God. In my life, there are still things that I do not understand in this walk, but I continue to trust God, ask for understanding and wisdom, and accept that that’s just part of this walk. I understand that this is a lifelong journey of seeking, finding, learning, knowing, and repeating that cycle as I grow and mature to new levels in my relationship with God. So if all your questions aren’t answered in one moment, don’t be discouraged, be encouraged that the God of the universe is with you and He’s given you an invitation to His heart and mind.
