Our Complete God
Our Complete God: Greatness, Power, Holiness, and Mercy
There is a psalm in Scripture that the Jewish people have treasured so deeply that the Talmud instructs them to recite it twice in the morning and once in the evening, promising special blessing for those who do. Psalm 145, written by David, is an acrostic poem — each verse beginning with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet, perhaps crafted that way to make it easier to memorize and carry close to the heart. Whatever David's reason for structuring it that way, the content of this psalm is nothing short of a portrait of God himself. And what a portrait it is.
When we step back and look at that portrait carefully, four breathtaking qualities of God emerge from the text. Together, they reveal what we might call our complete God.
God's Greatness
Verse 3 of Psalm 145 declares that God's greatness is unsearchable. Not merely large. Not merely impressive. Unsearchable. Beyond the full reach of human investigation or comprehension. The prophet Isaiah, after standing before the throne of God in a vision recorded in Isaiah 6, later wrote that all the nations of the earth are counted before God as less than nothing. He then posed two rhetorical questions that still hang in the air today: To whom will you liken God? What comparison will you make?
The honest answer is that there is none.
We live in a culture that has grown comfortable with the idea of evaluating God — measuring him against human standards of fairness or logic, and then dismissing him when he does not meet those expectations. But this is the profound foolishness of finite creatures sitting in judgment over an infinite Creator. God's greatness encompasses attributes that stagger the mind: he is infinite, immutable, self-sufficient, omniscient, omnipresent, faithful, good, gracious, and loving. And somehow, in his sovereignty, he has woven human free will into his perfect plan without compromising either his control or our genuine responsibility. That alone is a greatness beyond our ability to fully grasp.
God's Power
Psalm 145 speaks repeatedly of God's mighty acts — acts so overwhelming that they prompt generation after generation to declare them to the next. When we think of God's power, our minds naturally move toward creation. Colossians 1:16-17 reminds us that all things were created by Christ and for Christ, that he is before all things, and that by him all things hold together. That last phrase is worth sitting with. It is not simply that God created the universe and stepped back. He actively sustains it, moment by moment.
Consider what that means in practical terms. According to NASA, in a single second, the sun converts 4 million tons of matter into pure energy — roughly 90 billion megatons. The entire power-generating capacity of the earth amounts to about 60,000 megatons per year. In other words, the sun produces more than a million years worth of earth's energy every second. And that is one star. Astronomers estimate the number of known stars in the observable universe at a figure with 24 zeros after it — and that number is considered a gross underestimate.
God holds all of it together. Not straining. Not struggling. The same way a skilled pilot maintains level flight with one relaxed hand on the yoke, God sustains the cosmos with a kind of effortless mastery that is entirely beyond our comprehension. His power is limitless and unmatched.
God's Holiness
Verse 17 of Psalm 145 states plainly that God is righteous in all his ways and holy in all his works. The attribute of holiness is unique among all of God's qualities. It is not merely one characteristic among many. It is the essence of who he is — the total of all his attributes gathered into one. The word "holy," when applied to God or to things he has set apart, appears 611 times across 544 verses of Scripture, found in 51 of the 66 books of the canon. It is, by any measure, the word Scripture most wants us to associate with God.
God's holiness can make us uncomfortable. As sinful human beings, standing in the light of utter perfection has a way of exposing things we would rather keep hidden. But we should not run from that discomfort. As the theologian A.W. Tozer observed, every act of divine judgment in history has been a holy act of preservation — God moving to protect his creation from moral collapse. His holiness is not a threat to us. It is what keeps us anchored. It is what draws us back when we stray. It is what makes the universe a place where truth and goodness are not merely preferences but realities.
It is worth noting that holiness is the only attribute of God expressed three times in succession in Scripture. Both Isaiah 6:3 and Revelation 4:8 record the same declaration: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. Nothing else receives that kind of emphasis.
God's Mercy
And then there is mercy. Verses 8 and 9 of Psalm 145 describe God as gracious, full of compassion, slow to anger, and of great mercy. The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works. The Apostle Paul, writing in Ephesians, marvels that God is rich in mercy, driven by a great love toward us.
Here is the remarkable tension: when we honestly consider God's greatness, his power, and his holiness, it seems almost preposterous that he would stoop to save us. And yet, in his mercy, that is exactly what he does. Not only in the moment of salvation, but every single day of the Christian life. Most of the time, we do not even perceive it. His mercies accompany us quietly, redirecting us when we resist, opening doors we would have kept closed, placing us exactly where he needs us to be even when we have argued against going there.
The Only Right Response
David's response to seeing this complete God was not to sit quietly and feel good about what he knew. It was to praise and to proclaim. Verse 4 calls for one generation to declare God's mighty acts to the next. Verse 21 closes the psalm with a commitment to speak God's praise forever.
The same call lands on us today. We have seen his greatness. We have witnessed his power. We have been shaped by his holiness. We have been carried by his mercy. The only fitting response is to praise him for it — and then to make sure someone else hears about it.
There is a psalm in Scripture that the Jewish people have treasured so deeply that the Talmud instructs them to recite it twice in the morning and once in the evening, promising special blessing for those who do. Psalm 145, written by David, is an acrostic poem — each verse beginning with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet, perhaps crafted that way to make it easier to memorize and carry close to the heart. Whatever David's reason for structuring it that way, the content of this psalm is nothing short of a portrait of God himself. And what a portrait it is.
When we step back and look at that portrait carefully, four breathtaking qualities of God emerge from the text. Together, they reveal what we might call our complete God.
God's Greatness
Verse 3 of Psalm 145 declares that God's greatness is unsearchable. Not merely large. Not merely impressive. Unsearchable. Beyond the full reach of human investigation or comprehension. The prophet Isaiah, after standing before the throne of God in a vision recorded in Isaiah 6, later wrote that all the nations of the earth are counted before God as less than nothing. He then posed two rhetorical questions that still hang in the air today: To whom will you liken God? What comparison will you make?
The honest answer is that there is none.
We live in a culture that has grown comfortable with the idea of evaluating God — measuring him against human standards of fairness or logic, and then dismissing him when he does not meet those expectations. But this is the profound foolishness of finite creatures sitting in judgment over an infinite Creator. God's greatness encompasses attributes that stagger the mind: he is infinite, immutable, self-sufficient, omniscient, omnipresent, faithful, good, gracious, and loving. And somehow, in his sovereignty, he has woven human free will into his perfect plan without compromising either his control or our genuine responsibility. That alone is a greatness beyond our ability to fully grasp.
God's Power
Psalm 145 speaks repeatedly of God's mighty acts — acts so overwhelming that they prompt generation after generation to declare them to the next. When we think of God's power, our minds naturally move toward creation. Colossians 1:16-17 reminds us that all things were created by Christ and for Christ, that he is before all things, and that by him all things hold together. That last phrase is worth sitting with. It is not simply that God created the universe and stepped back. He actively sustains it, moment by moment.
Consider what that means in practical terms. According to NASA, in a single second, the sun converts 4 million tons of matter into pure energy — roughly 90 billion megatons. The entire power-generating capacity of the earth amounts to about 60,000 megatons per year. In other words, the sun produces more than a million years worth of earth's energy every second. And that is one star. Astronomers estimate the number of known stars in the observable universe at a figure with 24 zeros after it — and that number is considered a gross underestimate.
God holds all of it together. Not straining. Not struggling. The same way a skilled pilot maintains level flight with one relaxed hand on the yoke, God sustains the cosmos with a kind of effortless mastery that is entirely beyond our comprehension. His power is limitless and unmatched.
God's Holiness
Verse 17 of Psalm 145 states plainly that God is righteous in all his ways and holy in all his works. The attribute of holiness is unique among all of God's qualities. It is not merely one characteristic among many. It is the essence of who he is — the total of all his attributes gathered into one. The word "holy," when applied to God or to things he has set apart, appears 611 times across 544 verses of Scripture, found in 51 of the 66 books of the canon. It is, by any measure, the word Scripture most wants us to associate with God.
God's holiness can make us uncomfortable. As sinful human beings, standing in the light of utter perfection has a way of exposing things we would rather keep hidden. But we should not run from that discomfort. As the theologian A.W. Tozer observed, every act of divine judgment in history has been a holy act of preservation — God moving to protect his creation from moral collapse. His holiness is not a threat to us. It is what keeps us anchored. It is what draws us back when we stray. It is what makes the universe a place where truth and goodness are not merely preferences but realities.
It is worth noting that holiness is the only attribute of God expressed three times in succession in Scripture. Both Isaiah 6:3 and Revelation 4:8 record the same declaration: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. Nothing else receives that kind of emphasis.
God's Mercy
And then there is mercy. Verses 8 and 9 of Psalm 145 describe God as gracious, full of compassion, slow to anger, and of great mercy. The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works. The Apostle Paul, writing in Ephesians, marvels that God is rich in mercy, driven by a great love toward us.
Here is the remarkable tension: when we honestly consider God's greatness, his power, and his holiness, it seems almost preposterous that he would stoop to save us. And yet, in his mercy, that is exactly what he does. Not only in the moment of salvation, but every single day of the Christian life. Most of the time, we do not even perceive it. His mercies accompany us quietly, redirecting us when we resist, opening doors we would have kept closed, placing us exactly where he needs us to be even when we have argued against going there.
The Only Right Response
David's response to seeing this complete God was not to sit quietly and feel good about what he knew. It was to praise and to proclaim. Verse 4 calls for one generation to declare God's mighty acts to the next. Verse 21 closes the psalm with a commitment to speak God's praise forever.
The same call lands on us today. We have seen his greatness. We have witnessed his power. We have been shaped by his holiness. We have been carried by his mercy. The only fitting response is to praise him for it — and then to make sure someone else hears about it.
Recent
Archive
2026
April
No Comments