Job - A Story of Unlikely JoySample

One of my favorite lecture series in seminary was about having a “high view” of God.

I dug through my old notes from that series and discovered that our professor taught from Isaiah 6 as his main text. I remembered the lively discussions we had in class regarding how in modern Christendom’s quest to make the gospel relevant to teenagers and unbelievers we’ve all but lost the kind of awed reverence Isaiah displayed toward God. Our bumper-sticker- theology, God-is-my-copilot kind of culture has unwittingly minimized the omniscience, omnipotence, and perfect righteousness of the Alpha and Omega. We’ve sacrificed His greatness in our attempt to make Him more accessible. I remember being convicted during that class that I didn’t revere God the way I should. At that point, I committed to be more circumspect in how I addressed Him in prayer and even how I carried His Word.

I chose to regard my Bible as a precious treasure instead of carelessly shoving it into a suitcase or tossing into the back seat of the car on a road trip. I still hold to those convictions.

However, as I look back over my walk of faith in the twenty years since seminary, it’s clear that I sometimes overcorrected and ended up in the opposite ditch—having too low of a view of myself. I began to teach Bible studies about “awe deprivation,” focusing on the danger of having an anemic view of God. I loved to quote the Latin phrase, mysterium tremendum (tremendous mystery), which I gleaned from my one of my faith heroes, A. W. Tozer.

I also began weaving the word depravity into sober conversations as often as I could when describing how I was saved purely by grace from a sinful pit I’d dug myself and how I deserved death because of my transgressions. It all sounded really lofty and academic to me at the time because I didn’t have the spiritual maturity to understand that having a truly high view of God doesn’t result in continuing to have a low, degrading opinion of ourselves post-conversion. Instead, having a high view of God opens the believer’s heart and mind to what God says about us, His beloved children. Yes, apart from Him we’re wicked and depraved, but after we put our faith and hope in Jesus Christ, we’re allowed to shrug into His robes of righteousness and are adopted into the family of God as full heirs!