When Paul says, “Praise the Lord all you nations, and let all the peoples extol him” Rom 15:11, he’s saying that there is something about our God that is so universally praiseworthy and so profoundly stunning and so precisely worthy and so deeply satisfying that God will find passionate lovers in all sorts of different people.

Jesus’ true greatness is demonstrated in the breadth of people who identify themselves with Him and cherish Him. His glory is shown to be higher and deeper than if He was only found awesome by a narrow, insulated group of people who see everything the same way.

But instead of attracting only a single kind people, His appeal is to the deepest, highest, largest capacities of our souls. It all testifies to His incomparable glory.

And it all challenges the smallness of our personal image of God. And that’s important because our image of God drives every single part of our life and determines how we live out our lives.

Do we live a life of faith, passion, boldness, and conviction? If we don’t, then the missing piece is very often a problem with who we see God to be and how we think of Him because of that. But that’s not the way it has to be. People who are doubtful about who God wants to be for them and what He wants us to be for Him, are perfectly positioned to discover Him in some new, glorious, and breathtaking way. To grasp a new facet of a very big and multi-facetted God.

It’s when we think we’ve got God figured out, sewn up, and neatly defined that we stop growing. We’ve not only limited God in that case, we’ve limited ourselves… because we won’t let our God get any bigger.

More on this next time.