01/10/2021
Do you know God and Jesus Christ? You have heard their names, and may even claim to know them, because you have prayed to them, but do you really know them? There are people we know by sight because we see them on television, or a movie screen but we really don’t know them. There are some whose voice we recognize because we hear them on the radio, recordings, or the telephone, but we really don’t know them either. Then there are those people we say we know because we have read their biographies, and become familiar with their lives, but alas, we don’t know them either. Do you really know God or Jesus Christ?
“And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
John 17:3 ESV
I had a best friend in high school, and we spent hours together in conversation, and doing things with one another. Sometimes near the end of a day, or when we needed to rest from the heat of summer, we would just sit in silence and enjoy each other’s company. I knew my friend and he knew me, but there was much that even those hours hadn’t revealed. Marriages are like this too. I have been married to Ann for 44 years, and yet I am still discovering new things about her, and she can say the same about me. We are incredibly complex beings, so there is so much that makes us who we are, so much so that not even our lifetimes together can completely reveal it... Think now about the complexity of God, and Jesus Christ, and ask yourself if you could ever know them completely. Are they even more unsearchable than we find each other to be? YES!
“Every day I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.”
Psalm 145:2-3 ESV
Yet, we have a bridge that helps us to know in feeling what we are unable to know by our intellect. It begins with the emotion of love, and this deep seated feeling allows us to trust, and have hope in them, and to find peace in their love for us, even though we don’t fully understand who they are. You might call this faith, but even faith can lack love whereas our relationship with God never lacks this emotion... it is founded upon it, and almost entirely comprised of it. In the 44 years I have loved, studied, and desired to know Ann, I am just scratching the surface of who she is, and even though I have loved and sought to known God and Jesus much longer than that, I know even less about their fullness. Love keeps me seeking the mystery of who they are. Curiosity can only take us so far, and infatuation and desire a little further, but without love faith falters, infatuation drifts away, desire loses its flavor, and in this way our journey towards God meets its demise, and our marriages crumble into dust. So emotion, and especially love provides us the key ingredient... the bridge we need to know what we can’t see or understand.
“Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways, and how small a whisper do we hear of him! But the thunder of his power who can understand?””
Job 26:14 ESV
So you are probably asking yourself how you can actually know God, and Jesus more, and the answer is to sit quietly with them, and listen as they reveal themselves to us. One morning I was telling my grandchildren a story, and as I spoke I looked at their faces and they were enthralled with what I was saying. In their eyes I could see the reflection of my words as the story unfolded... sometimes a look of wonder, sometimes joy, and occasionally fear, but mixed in with all their imaginings was the look of love they had for me. That love allowed them to override the nearly overwhelming energy of their youth, and to sit silently listening to me.
When we pray we have the tendency to talk incessantly, and never listen to the story that God has to tell us about Himself, or the will and plan He has for us. Our love needs to place a damper on our own erupting self, and allow God to see the reflection in our eyes that I saw in the eyes of my grandchildren... a reflection of love, awe, and a plethora of emotion for Him as we listen to what He has to say.
I was reading Andrew Murray as part of my devotional time today, and he shared these thoughts about understanding God. Listen as he expresses them to us...
“How is it that we so seldom experience the life-giving power of truly knowing God? Because we do not give God time to reveal Himself to us. When we pray, we think that we know well enough how to speak to God. We forget that one of the most important principles of prayer is to be silent before Him so that He may reveal Himself.” - Andrew Murray
So let’s spend today considering the love we have for God and Jesus Christ, and how that love impacts how well we come to know them. Let’s ask ourselves if we allow them to speak to us in our times of prayer, or if we are so consumed with telling them something we find important that we don’t allow them to speak to us. Then let’s explore our relationship with them by being silent, and trusting in that moment of stillness, and faith to bring us closer together. After all of this let’s ask ourselves if we have learned something new about God in the process, and if we know Him, and Jesus, better as a result of our love.
“As in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects the man.”
Proverbs 27:19 ESV
Prayer:
Father, thank you for loving us, and giving us a seed of your own love that grows in us throughout our lives, and reveals you as it bears such fruit as hope, faith, and wonder. Help us Lord to be silent in our prayer closets so that we can hear your voice, and come to know you better as you reveal yourself to us in this way. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you our God who wishes to be in relationship with us, and to reveal yourself to us in all your glory. Praised be your name for the power and revelation that comes in silence, because it carries within its speechlessness the hope, faith, and trust, of knowing you. You are merciful Father, and have sent your Son Jesus to redeem us even as we have babbled on in our sin. Open our eyes, and ears to the wonder you are, and seal our mouths in your presence until it is right that we should speak, and praise you. Hear our hearts Father as we call out to you for understanding, wisdom, and the joy of knowing you better. Help us to find your forgiveness for the sin that has been our lot since before we began to know Christ. Increase us in our love and faith in you so that we might be judged worthy of eternal life, and to sit at your table. Father, praised be your name, and ever increasing our knowledge of you, and for the loving relationship that bridges our lack of knowing you fully.
“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”
Romans 11:33-36 ESV
Rich Forbes