Not God Enough: Why Your Small God Leads to Big Problems

by J.D. Greear

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. . . . No religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. . . . We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God.

The most [determining] fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like.4

What we think about God determines everything else in our lives: what we value, what we pursue, and how we pursue it.

God speaks. Constantly. He puts small “speakers” in nature, in beauty, in our pain, our pleasures, and our questions. Most clearly, his voice calls out to us through Scripture. Are you listening? It might not answer all your questions, but it will bring you face to face with a God even bigger than your questions.

The inability to understand the “why” of God’s ways has been the greatest challenge to faith since the beginning of time.

If God is all-powerful and all-loving, then he is also all-wise. And if his wisdom is as far beyond ours as his power is above ours, it shouldn’t surprise us that much of his “why” is beyond our immediate ability to understand.

“If God conceded me his omnipotence for twenty-four hours, I would make many changes in the world. But I know that if he gave me his wisdom, too, I would leave things as they are.”

Having faith does not mean having all your questions answered but perceiving that there is One who does have all the answers.

“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

“Your problem with sexual temptation is not that your sexual desires are too strong, but that your sense of the presence of God is too weak.”

If you want to overcome sin, don’t focus on shrinking your temptations; focus on enlarging your view of God.

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