Psalm 34: 3 exhorts us: “O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together”.
God is unchangeable and cannot be made bigger, but our perspective of Him can be magnified as we move closer to Him. When we magnify something we bring it closer to our perspective.
Consider the well known quote in Christianity: “If God seems far away guess who moved!” (Robin Jones Gunn).
God is not far off. Acts 17:27 declares of God that “……..He is not far from every one of us”. God is always present but we can lose the awareness of His presence when we focus on our problems, magnifying them instead of the Lord.
Sometimes in our ever changing circumstances, we find our earthly wisdom fading as darkness clouds our path in the form of adversity. If we focus on the greatness of the circumstance, as opposed to the greatness of our God who can deliver us in it, and from it, then we magnify the problem. God is greater than any problem that befalls me. Adversity necessitates the need of every child of God to magnify the Lord. As we move closer to Him in praise and exaltation, our perspective of His omnipotence is magnified and quietens our troubled spirit. There is a consequential blessedness that is birthed of God in a person that is trusting Him. Do we remember that our understanding can be laid to rest, or bypassed by a heavenly deposit of His peace amid conflict: Philippians 4: 6-7 “Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus”.
Psalm 34: 8 again exhorts: “O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man who trusts in Him”. Taste and see….God invites us to prove Him in the trial and trust Him. As we trust Him, we magnify Him in our lives and our perspective of Him is enlarged, as we consider the greatness of our God.
Isaiah 54 displays the heart of a gracious and merciful God to a barren people. The whole chapter is full of His promises of redemption and restoration to a broken people. As we seek Him, we shall not fail to find Him and discover the loving kindness of His father-heart. As we walk closely with Him, He is magnified in our lives.
The deeper we walk with God we discover the truth of the apostle Paul’s words, Galatians 2:20: “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me”.
As I magnify the Lord in my daily walk I will see the truth of John the Baptist’s timeless words. Speaking of Jesus, he declared: “He must increase, I must decrease”, John 3:30. This is the incremental purifying process that continues throughout the lifetime of God’s saints. Psalm 116:15 “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints”. When I surrender the right to my own selfish desires and will, giving the Lord that first place in my life, this is the “death” that He declares is precious in His sight. In this position the life of His Son, Jesus Christ, can live and flow through an open channel as Christ is magnified in my life.
Come magnify the Lord with me, let us exalt His name together!
Look up the lyrics on the song “Christ Be Magnified” sung by Cody Carnes. Meditate on them as these profound words from the heart of God cause your spirit to rise and witness to the truths in the message of the song.
Photo by Elizaveta Dushechkina on Unsplash
