Thinking Highly of God

(The summary of a class I presented in a youth meeting in St.Gregorios church, Houston,  Texas.)

---

The One We Look Up To

A few days ago, I asked a 15-year-old boy to name someone he looked up to. Without hesitation, he mentioned a basketball player. He loved the game, and naturally, he admired someone who excelled in it.

This is how it usually works. Young people choose role models based on what they value. If you value music, you admire a musician. If you value wealth, you look up to the wealthy. If you value power, you admire the powerful. When I was young, I valued knowledge, and so I looked up to those who were knowledgeable.

We meet many people in life, but only a few rise to a special place in our minds. To “look up to” someone means to admire them deeply, to give them a high place in our thoughts. We begin to dream of becoming like them. We speak well of them, praise them, and enjoy their presence.

Imagine you love basketball. One day, you discover that someone in your own community—someone you have always known—is an excellent player. Suddenly, that person rises in your estimation. You begin to admire him more, and you find joy in being around him. What changed? Not the person—but your understanding of him.

This reminds us of a familiar parable of Jesus—the Parable of the Prodigal Son. The son had always known his father, but it was only after he left home and suffered hardship that he truly understood his father’s goodness. While feeding pigs under a harsh master, he realized how kind and generous his father was—even to his servants. That new understanding transformed his life. His father rose to a new and higher place in his mind, and he longed to return, repent, and be restored.

This brings us to an important question: We have always known God as our heavenly Father—but what if we gain a new understanding of Him today?

If that happens, God will rise to a higher place in our minds. We will begin to truly admire Him. We may even feel the need to repent—not because God has changed, but because our understanding has.

If we ask why we come to church, many would say, “to pray.” But perhaps a deeper answer is this: we come to worship—to praise God.

And what do we praise God for?

To understand this, let us turn to the experience of Isaiah. About 700 years before Christ, Isaiah had a life-changing vision in the temple. In that vision, he saw angels praising God continuously:

“Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord Almighty.”

To grasp the significance of this, we need some background. This vision occurred shortly after the death of King Uzziah. Uzziah had ruled for nearly fifty years, and the nation had prospered under him. He was widely admired. But toward the end of his life, he was afflicted with leprosy. At the time, many believed such illness was a punishment from God. Some even claimed that Uzziah was punished for overstepping his role in the temple.

Naturally, people were confused and perhaps even angry with God. Why would a good king suffer such a fate? Isaiah himself may have struggled with this question as he meditated in the temple.

It was in this moment that he had the vision. While people on earth were questioning God, the angels in heaven were not blaming Him. Instead, they were declaring: God is holy.

This revelation changed Isaiah completely. He came to understand that God, who knows everything, cannot do anything wrong. The problem was not with God, but with human understanding. Recognizing his own error, Isaiah confessed, and he experienced immediate forgiveness. He then went out and proclaimed to the people that God is holy—and that they had been mistaken in judging Him.

From that moment, the praise of the angels became a model for human worship.

When we gather for worship, we join the angels in proclaiming:

Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty!

The angels made three profound declarations:

• God is holy
• God is Lord (the sovereign over all creation)
• God is Almighty (possessing all power)

They also proclaimed that the whole earth is filled with God’s glory.

Later, the Church expanded this praise:

Holy are You, O God
Holy are You, O Almighty
Holy are You, O Immortal

Here, another truth is added—God is immortal, beyond time, the creator of time itself.

After the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the Church added yet another powerful line:

“Crucified for us.”

In Christ, we see the fullest revelation of God—not as a distant judge, but as a loving Father. Contrary to the common belief that God punishes us for our sins, Jesus revealed that God loves us unconditionally. In fact, God is the one who suffers because of us. Just as the father in the prodigal son’s story is misunderstood and judged by his sons, God too is often misunderstood and judged by humanity.

Jesus taught us two central truths:

• God alone is truly holy, good, and righteous
• God loves us unconditionally

This is the Good News—the Gospel. And it has the power to transform anyone who truly understands it.

When we realize that God alone is perfect, we also recognize that we, with our limited understanding, can make mistakes in our thoughts, words, and actions. This realization humbles us. It helps us admit our faults and become more forgiving toward others.

Finally, our order of worship was shaped by our spiritual forefathers with a clear purpose:
to help us deeply understand this Good News—so that we may live lives filled with love, joy, and peace.