Awesome

As we continue our study of Acts this week, let’s consider what it means to be in awe of something or someone.

Acts 2:43 Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.

The word awesome is used in way too familiar a way these days.  It’s synonymous with cool, alright, great, or even groovy if you lived through the 1960s.  That’s not how the Bible views awesome.

Awe, in a biblical sense, is not being wowed or star struck or even giddy in the presence of celebrity.  It’s a reverent holy fear.  It’s being made speechless by comprehending in a greater way something of the magnitude of God’s holiness and power.  It’s a holy fear and a respect for the Almighty.  You don’t mess with Texas, you don’t mess with around with Jim or Slim according to Jim Croce, and I’d argue that you don’t mess around with diminishing your Creator and pretend you’re god enough to take Him on.

Seeing the power of God to radically change people’s lives is the kind of thing that renders us speechless.  I can’t say I have had many glimmers of God’s greatness and infinite power visible in my life in show-stopping ways.  Sure there are indications of God’s greatness in a million little ways—the breath of life, the beating of a human heart, the regularity of the sunrise, the ability to feel love and joy, the human voice being able to both speak and sing—miraculous in their own ways, though we see them too often as mundane.  They’ve grown less awesome by their familiarity and dependability.  But the truly stop-you-in-your-tracks kind of power and greatness is not so commonly displayed.  Yet, I’ve had a few profound enough that it sent the marrow of my bones to quivering like Jell-O.  I kind of wish I saw that more often in my life and in our culture.  Why?  Because that kind of reminder chastises us for belittling God when we try make Him just a buddy or a friend instead of the High and Holy Sovereign Lord who He is.

In Acts 2:43, it says, “Everyone was filled with awe and the apostles did many wonders and miraculous signs.”  It doesn’t say that the apostles did many wonders and miraculous signs, and therefore everyone was filled with awe.

People wonder if wonders and miraculous signs are still done today.  I wonder if we’d see more of the miraculous, if we feared God more.

Questions for pondering:

1.  When is the last time you considered God’s greatness?
2. Are you more likely to fear an equal or a more powerful and mysterious being?
3. How might your 4 goals of Effective Christians (being devoted to the Word, fellowship, the Lord’s Supper, and prayer) serve to cultivate a more worshipful outlook, treating God with greater reverence?