Greater
There’s a Church saying that it seems everybody knows: “God is good – all the time, all the time – God is good.” Will anybody be honest to acknowledge that knowing doesn’t always mean experiencing? Some of us question our walk with God because we are having difficulty managing the good of God. Should we stress it? Absolutely NO. God’s goodness does not depend on who we are. God is good because of who He is, and He cannot deny himself. Nobody falls short of the goodness of God!
Do you not know that the Warrior and terrible God (Say unto God, How terrible art thou in thy works! Through the greatness of thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves unto thee, Psalm 66:3 KJV) – all powerful and mighty, the great I AM – chose to love us before we hit planet earth?
When we are able to take a breath each morning, see our environment, have mental awareness, hear the sounds of movement, and speak words from our mouth – this is some of the goodness of God. When we make Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, He brings the possibility of Greater into our lives.
Moving into greater means that we have to have clearly defined our good God first. How do we do that? By bringing specific details of our lives to the forefront of our memory where we’ve experienced the goodness of God. Things like the car accident you walked away from, recovery from a disease that was meant to steal your life early, reconciliation with the one person you never thought it’d happen with, or resources out of nowhere appearing just when you needed them the most. This is all good, but the greatest good lies in the fact that our God is good regardless of what happens or doesn’t happen in our lives – He never changes.
The Bible has numerous verses telling us that God is great. No one is like you, Lord; you are great, and your name is mighty in power (Jeremiah 10:6 NIV). To Him who alone does great wonders, For His lovingkindness endures forever (Psalm 136:4 AMP). For the Lord, the God above all gods, is awesome beyond words; he is the great King of all the earth (Psalm 47:2 TLB).
Stepping into Greater
We understand that the Greater one who lives inside of us, Jesus, is our invitation to Greater. He calls us to be people of distinction – no one else has your same DNA, gifts, talents, or purpose in their life. If we take His invitation, then we are responsible to not stop at good, but carry out the pursuit towards Greater. Jesus’ invitation is threefold: 1. Enter into His rest – release our burdens to Him and seize not the restlessness of this world. 2. Become His disciple – we are called to serve (pass on the works of the good news of the Word). 3. Live in the realm of God – being spirit led, confident in the security, provision, grace, and peace of God.
To God, true greatness is found as we serve those around us without regard for our own gain or loss. Seeing others as more important than ourselves – as Jesus clearly did – we find our worth in God’s estimation of who we are instead of people. It’s a big responsibility, to freely serve others as Christ serves us. Maybe loving someone who acts like hell on fire. Maybe forgiving others without measurement or expectation of reciprocity. Maybe maintaining our self-worth from God and ignoring those who see us negatively. Ha! The biggest part of greatness showing up may be in how we manage our desire not to tell someone off.
Sensing the Building of Greater
People who are great at what they do have made a choice on how to re-define their mindset, attitude, and actions. They know that how they respond to any life event is a choice that’s all theirs. Life has shown them that it’s not enough to just have talent, it’s how you use it that counts. There’s a burning desire to improve. So, change is not a foe – it is to be embraced as a reality to exploit as an opportunity to improve. With God, all things are possible – we have to believe, receive, and give faith feet to walk out God’s plan for who we are.
Gayle Smith, Author, Christian Life Coach
