09/06/2020
How do we envision God to be? If we are asked to describe who God is, do we begin by saying He is all powerful, all knowing, ever present, mighty, wise, or do we begin by saying that He is love? What makes God worthy of praise and worship in your eyes?
“So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”
1 John 4:16 ESV
How we describe God, and Jesus, to others speaks volumes about who we are as individuals. A person of might, and strength would begin by describing Them with these attributes, a person who is intelligent, or wise would begin by saying these things, but a person who has humbled himself before God, and come to know His heart, would describe Him as loving, kind, and with words similar to those used by Paul when he spoke to the church at Ephesus about how they should behave...
“with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,”
Ephesians 4:2 ESV
Love, it is the most essential ingredient in every dealing God has with us, and how we should approach Him, and Jesus told us that it is at the root of both the first and second greatest commandments... then went on to say that love is the foundation of all commandments, law, and prophecy.
““Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.””
Matthew 22:36-40 ESV
In one of the most quoted of all Christian scriptures we are told that Jesus Himself was sent to us out of love.
““For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
John 3:16 ESV
So, having established who God is, let’s turn our attention to who we are, and there is no better way to do this than to listen to ourselves describe God, or His Son Jesus. In much the same way that Jesus said our heart would be where our treasure is, we reveal our innermost selves by how we describe God.
“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Matthew 6:21 ESV
A soldier sees God as mighty, an intellectual sees a Him as all knowing, a judge sees Him as wise, the vain see Him as beautiful, and a rampant sinner sees Him as forgiving, but unlike the world, the meek and humble see His love, and come to know Him through it, and by loving Him in return.
“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.”
1 John 3:1 ESV
How then are we to defeat the old person in us, and change the way we are? How can we slay our own mightiness, and become meek, how can we see ourselves as ignorant instead of knowledgeable, or righteous instead of sinners? We do this by yielding ourselves bodily, and renewing our minds.
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Romans 12:1-2 ESV
Paul refers to this by calling himself a servant to Jesus, and a slave to those he wishes to win to Christ. Before his encounter with Jesus Paul was a strong man who pursued Christians relentlessly; he was mighty, intelligent, and fluent in the law, but in a single meeting with Jesus his transformation began, and it can begin in a similar way with us as well.
“Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God,”
Romans 1:1 ESV
“For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them.”
1 Corinthians 9:19 ESV
When we place God first in our lives we are setting him above all of our personally adopted gods, and we are acknowledging Him for what scripture says He truly is. We read in various scriptures that he has a great many characteristics, but above all else He is love. So if we are strong then we need to subjugate our strength to His, if we value ourselves as intelligent then we should admit that we are but fools before Him, and one at a time we should go through our self-made gods until at last we can describe Him first and foremost as being Love.
In this way we cast off those things about ourselves that keep us from pursuing God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. In so doing we might find that there is something we struggle with more than all the others, and can’t seem to find relief from, or subjugate. If we find this to be true, then we should put it down and walk away from it.
“And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”
Matthew 5:30 ESV
So let’s look back at the question “How do we envision God to be?“, and think about all the times we have been asked to describe Him. Did we place His love first when thinking of Him, or did we describe ourselves instead?
Prayer:
Father, thank you for loving me from the foundation of the earth, and for having prepared your Son Jesus for my redemption from the moment of Eve’s first bite of the forbidden fruit. Lord, I thank you for revealing in me the things I had come to value most about myself, and for my describing you as if I were describing who I was... placing the gods in my life above you. Forgive me Lord for it is in your image In which I was created, and not you in mine. All that I am serves you, and your love Instructs new in how I can love you. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you my God whose love underpins all that you are, and by which my life receives its substance, and flavor. Praised be your name for loving me so much that you would send Jesus, your only begotten Son, to live, die, and be resurrected for me. Your grace is without compare, snd your love overshadows all that you are. Pour your mercy over me a father, and wash me pure in the blood of Jesus so that your love will have saved me, and I can spend eternity praising, and worshiping you.
Rich Forbes