God versus Man
God versus Man
Human pride is the greatest enemy in the relationship between God and mankind. It will deceive the heart of man every time and thus obscure the difference between God and man.
Worlds Apart (God Reveals Himself to Us)
Many agree in theory that but for Jesus Christ the relationship between God and man is tenuous indeed.
The man and ant comparison is inadequate. The gap between God and man is the difference between the finite and the infinite. It is the difference between One who can see millions of light years in space, and one whose vision is limited by the horizon.
Everyone acknowledges this great difference in theory, but what happens in life? Where does God fit in?
How is He thought of?
The Average Man
Look at the average man in the developed world. He has a good life, good job. There are people who are less important than he is. In his own little sphere at home, he is the boss (or thinks himself so). His wife and children respect him, and look to him for guidance and protection. He seems to be the centre around which the whole universe turns. You can see what a feeling of complacency this makes. His ideas about himself can get all out of proportion. He does not travel much and has little comprehension of the earth’s immensity. He does not recognize that there are seven billion others like him, each of whom feels he is the centre of the universe.
The Christian Man?
Take this modern man, however, and make a Christian out of him and see his feeling of self-importance grow.
This man of mediocre ability has the opportunity and privilege not given to many; the privilege of standing up and being listened to. He has become a kind of guardian of other people’s morals.
There’s a touch of the martyr about him too; he doesn’t allow himself to do some of the things that other people do, so he stays out of politics and avoids the military. This is painless because of the society in which many people live which is built around the rights of minorities. All this lends special importance to him. He’s respected by his friends, does not harm anyone, may even do good works. He says his prayers, which are mostly repetitious, night after night, automatically, often swiftly, to God his kindly benefactor and may make some trivial personal requests.
Holy God
In his self-importance, he forgets he is praying to the wrathful God of Israel, overseer of the Universe of unlimited properties. He forgets that he enjoys and has a relationship with a God far beyond his knowledge or comprehension, with whom this could be no relationship at all except for God’s act of almost unbelievable kindness of the perfect life and sacrifice of His Son. How easy it is for the apparently good moral Christian to raise himself so high in his own esteem as to create a blasphemous and fictitious relationship between himself and God.
Fresh Perspective
There is a cure. Picture a desolate beach in late summer: winds; ceaseless pounding of the surf; the whistle of the wind; myriad forms of life eking out an existence on the fringe of the ocean; millions of little shellfish burying; shells worn smooth; sand grains uncountable, coarse on the beach then made smooth.
God knows about it all – each shellfish, every grain of sand. These shifting sands existed age before we were born and will continue after we’re gone. The ceaseless pounding will continue. In a scene so vast, the wonder is that we are noticed at all.
We’re but the flicker of a candle on the face of the earth, then gone. In the face of such a scene, we can only fall at the feet of our Creator and contemplate in wonder the marvel of it all and the great hope of salvation:
O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth, who have set Your glory above the heavens! (Psalm 8:1).
By Leroy Canoles Jr
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