Do You Know How to Magnify God?

Magnifying God is something we should value greatly as believers in the Lord, and it concerns whether our belief can be approved by God. So in real life, what should we do to magnify God? I’d like to share 2 ways of practice, and hopefully, they can help you.

First, we must only have a place in our heart for God, and neither should we worship nor look up to any man.

It is mentioned in the Ten Commandments, “You shall have none other gods before Me. You shall not make you any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth: You shall not bow down yourself to them, nor serve them: for I Jehovah your God am a jealous God” (Deuteronomy 5:7-9). This tells us that we believers in God must honor God as great, cannot exalt and look up to any idol, because God is a God who hates evil. We should worship God and put God first. No matter what difficulties or problems we encounter, we should seek God’s will first and act according to God’s words, instead of blindly looking up to people or listening to them. Just as the Bible says, “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). This is proof that we magnify God. On the contrary, if we don’t act like this but turn to people we worship and admire for advice and blindly listen to them, regardless of whether or not their opinions conform to the truth and God’s will, then we are liable to be led astray and resist God.

Just as those Jewish people—they didn’t exalt God as great, so when the Lord Jesus came to work, they blindly worshiped and listened to the chief priests and Pharisees, following them in condemning and rejecting the Lord Jesus, and in the end lost the Lord’s salvation. Meanwhile, there were some other people, such as Peter, John, and Nathanael. These people didn’t blindly believe what the Pharisees said, but carefully investigated the Lord Jesus’ words and work with a God-fearing heart. When they found that the Lord Jesus’ words and utterances had authority and power and were all the truth, they recognized that He was the Messiah they had yearned for, and thus followed Him without hesitation and finally gained His salvation.

Obviously, to honor God as great and gain God’s praise, we should have the hearts that fear God and seek His will first in everything. If you cannot understand God’s will immediately, we can seek with the people, but we should discern whether people’s words conform to the truth, and whether they have the basis in God’s words. If what they say is in accordance with the truth and is on the basis of God’s words, we can listen and obey; otherwise, we cannot blindly listen to them. This is how to exalt God as great.

Second, faced with things we don’t understand, we should have a reverent heart for God and never speculate about them at will.

Jehovah God said, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways” (Isaiah 55:8). From this verse, we can see that the wisdom of God soars higher than the heavens, and we humans will never be able to fathom it. So as created beings, we should have hearts that revere God, and not come to arbitrary conclusions. As for the part we don’t understand, we should seek the truth with an obedient heart and seek God’s will instead of blindly judging according to our minds. This is another expression of magnifying God, which will be praised by God.

As we all know, when Job lost his livestock that filled the mountains and all his children and had his body covered with sore boils, although he couldn’t understand why these things befell him, he didn’t use his notions and imaginings to judge and complain against God, or sin with his lips, but prayed to and relied on God with a reverent heart, which allowed him to understand God’s will and say the words, “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: Jehovah gave, and Jehovah has taken away; blessed be the name of Jehovah” (Job 1:21). Thus, he stood witness for God, and obtained God’s praise and blessing. Job’s three friends, however, didn’t have a reverent heart for God; they randomly made guesses and judgements about Job, thus provoking God’s wrath.

Therefore, we must not jump to conclusions about things we don’t understand, but should emulate Job: praying and seeking with obedient hearts. This is how magnifying God is expressed, and also the only way to comprehend God’s will, find the way of practice and finally gain God’s praise.

I believe through today’s fellowship each of you have gained some knowledge about how to exalt God as great. As long as we put these two principles into practice, we will certainly become people who exalt God as great.