Lord, You Are Fierce!
Lord, you are not a God to be taken lightly. You are not a God to be underestimated or ignored. There is no power in heaven or on earth that can compare. No plan of Yours can be thwarted once You will it to be so. Lord, the strongest of the earth are stunned at the sound of your voice. Their raging cries are silenced when you speak but a whisper (Psalm 76:6-7). Demons may scheme and blaspheme, but they flee at your command. Evil rushes headlong into its own destruction at your word (Mark 5). You are a God to be feared. In your presence our hearts melt, our powers fail, and our knees bow (Romans 14:11).
Lord, we acknowledge that we often fail to take You seriously. We imagine You into an image that fits our selfish wants and desires. We build for ourselves idols out of ideas of what we think you should be, rather than who you are. We remake You into our own mage, something more palatable and easier to manipulate (Exodus 20:4, Romans 1:19-25). We ignore Your unabashed Revelation of Yourself. You do not hide who You are from us, and You have no need of our selfish editing (Deuteronomy 29:29, 2 Timothy 3:16).
Only You can be a God of love and a God of wrath, a God of mercy and a God of justice, a God who creates and a God who destroys, a God who gives and a God who takes away, because only You are holy, holy, holy (Isaiah 6:3, Exodus 15:11). You are a fierce and mighty God, and You command the worship and adoration of all. We know that we should hide from Your anger and condemnation, but you compel us to approach You because of Your great love. (Hebrews 4:16).
You are the only God that is worthy of praise because you are the only God that gives of His divine self. Knowing that Your own wrath must be satisfied, you unleashed its full force upon your very self in the person of Your only Son Jesus (Isaiah 53). You so desired to redeem us that you dwelt among us. You died for us so that you might dwell within us. So the fullness of God that walked beside us has shared His very nature with us so that we may stand before the Father (1 Corinthians 3:16). We praise You because you are fierce and yet you have made it possible for us to approach You. We have full access to Your throne because You satisfied the requirement of Your own holiness. This is a mystery to grand for us to comprehend. What a wonder that we can understand but in part and praise you with a heart that is whole (1 Corinthians 1:9-12)!
We praise You God! We confess that we forget how awesome and mighty and fierce you are. We are humbled by the knowledge that your grace alone allows us to even think of You. We must prostrate ourselves before you, and yet we can boldly approach You. What are we that you are mindful of us (Psalm 8:4)? What are we that you would open our eyes to see You or our ears to hear Your voice (Proverbs 20:12)? We are nothing, but You withheld nothing to claim us. Lord, grant us the strength and the righteous desire to surrender all to You in return, as You so rightly deserve (Philippians 2:13).
Amen
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