Our God

During worship yesterday at Church we sang the song Our God by Chris Tomlin. Definitely up there in my favorites for worship songs. But the chorus got me thinking about something.

"Our God is greater, our God is stronger, God you are higher than any other.

Our God is Healer, Awesome in Power, Our God! Our God!"

It reads that God is higher than any other. Any other god. And as I pondered this I remembered back to the days when I studied Greek and Roman mythology and all of their gods. In this post today I would like to look at one of the Greek gods and three goddesses and compare and contrast them to the One True God.

Zeus had his golden throne on the highest summit of Mount Olympus and was respected and awed by all gods and mortals. He was the "Lord of Justice", punishing anyone who lied or broke an oath, but was fair and always striving to keep a balance of all things.

Furthermore, Zeus was responsible for the weather and was shaping it according to his temper. When in high spirits, Zeus was blessing the world with fine weather; in case of bad mood, however, he would throw rain, winds, lightning and thunderbolts to cause disaster to the mortals.

But even Zeus' powers had their limits, for, however powerful as he was, he had neither the right nor the ability to intervene in the decisions of the Fates.

What does God have to offer against such a powerful god?

Psalm 33:5 

The LORD loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love.

Mark 4: 37-41

A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

Jeremiah 23:29

Does not my word burn like fire?" says the LORD. "Is it not like a mighty hammer that smashes a rock to pieces?

Now, I don't see anywhere in the Bible where it says God has a limit. Zeus cannot intervene in the decisions of the Fates. What are the Fates?

The three Fates in Greek mythology were: Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. Clotho, the spinner, was the youngest of the three Fates; she spun the thread of destiny with a distaff, determining the time of birth of an individual; Lachesis measured the thread length to determine the length of life; finally, cruel Atropos cut the thread of life, determining this way the time of death.

So these three goddess had technically more power than Zeus himself. If you don't know, they were Zeus's daughters. However, it still took THREE of them in order to birth life, continue life, and end life.

Genesis 2:7

Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

Genesis 2:18-24

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.

But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

We see that not only did God create Adam (man), as well as all of the trees and all of the animals, He also created Eve. What help did He have? None at all! Just Himself. Furthermore...

Jeremiah 1:5

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.

God is certainly more powerful than any mythological god.

Why do I say all of this? I'm sure you know it already, you know that God is greater than any fake gods. You know that there is only One True God.

Here is my point. It's healthy to step back every once in a while and see just how great our God is! And I don't mean by simply saying God is great, I mean by actually seeing, researching, understanding WHY God is so much greater than us or other gods. We can live with simple faith and dedicate our lives to God. But He deserves so much more than that. Just look at mythology, look at how silly it is that they need so many gods and goddesses all fighting with each other and we have the God who is greater. The God who actually exists!

 

I urge you to think about this idea this week. Ponder how we have a God who created everything. 

Everything we see was created by God. Everything we know was thought up by God. Everything goes back to our awesome, mighty, incredible God.

We owe our lives to Him.