WRITTEN BY MICHELE HANSEN
Based on Revelation 19:6-8, this year we are exploring how the Believer’s righteous acts cover us in Christ’s righteousness and represent our Savior to the world.
“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”
(Revelation 4:11)
The word “worthy” is a “describing word”, an adjective. It is a word used to describe something that has worth. It is describing a “something”. In this case, that something is Someone…God.
Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. (John 21:25)
In the book of Revelations, the Apostle John was given this unbelievable experience with heaven, God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, the heavenly host…and then was left with the awesome responsibility of trying to describe it all using terms he understood and having seen things he had absolutely no frame of reference for.
One of the outstanding characteristics of the book of Revelation is how the whole of creation in every circumstance, when faced with the awesome reality of our Almighty God, responded…with praise and worship or fear and trembling. It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God. (Hebrews 10:31)
All the denizens of the supernatural realm know God. They know He is absolutely real. For the citizens of heaven, to their joy and eternal rest and for the ones who reject the Lamb of God, eternal horror. The heavenly inhabitants are forever inspired to lift praises and worship for the grace and mercy of our amazing God.
Casting Crowns wrote that song years ago, “I Can Only Imagine”. The song is fantastic, but truthfully, no…we can’t imagine. There is no description that can measure up, no amount of creative imagination can capture the absolute perfection of our Holy God…but we try, don’t we?
We try because God, Jesus, Holy Spirit…He is worthy to be praised and worshiped. Our regenerated spirits know this truth. We lift our hearts in prayer, in song, in tears, in shouts of joy and laughter, in silent contemplation, knowing that our worthy God deserves our highest praise.
So, we use what the Lord has given us. We seek, learn, study, meditate, pray, wait, write, watch, all in an attempt to reach the unattainable. But He calls us to it, doesn’t He? His sweet whispers draw our spirits into that communion with Holy Spirit in ways that can’t be described or explained.
We know He is worthy. Our very being knows it and responds. We use the words that John used in the book of Revelation, David did in the Psalms, the prophets in the Old Testament. He is worthy, not only for praise and worship, but He is worthy to be King. He is King. He is worthy of respect and honor. He is beyond all and above all. The scriptures say that we can’t understand His ways, that He knows the end from the beginning and yet He is eternal. Does that even make sense? It’s true, though.
Man has a way of dumbing down what we can’t understand or explain. We make our cases for “expert opinion.” We dismiss the miraculous as circumstance and coincidence and lose the wonder of the Creator’s Hand. It has to make sense; we have to be able to control it and give ourselves the comfort of false security in our own existence.
The writers of the scriptures knew Who the Author was. They knew that God was the one filling their spirits and spilling the ink on the page according to His will and inspiration. No one would ever be able to convince them that it was they who penned the perfection of the very word of God, through the Word who is the Son. They knew. They knew Who was the One.
Is He worthy? The One who spun the stars in the heavens and decided what a platypus should look like; the One who dredged the depths of the oceans, far too deep for exploration and knows the secrets. Is He worthy? The air we breathe, with the lungs He filled with His own breath, from the earth He created from His own design, from the nothing into something just because He could…because of love. Because He wanted a family. Because He wanted us.
Is He worthy?
He is.
