God Loves us through His Revelation -- How God Demonstrates Love Part 3

If I were asked to define eternal, at one time I would have said, "life that lasts forever" or "life that begins when I get to heaven." But my answer changed when I came across John 17:3, "And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." The more I think on this verse, the more I realize that it is a very rich verse.

As children grow up there is a progression in the way they relate to others. When a mom first invites a child to play with her child, she soon realizes play is not automatic At age one a child is generally content to be in the same room with a friend, but each child is playing by themselves with their own toys. The interaction is very limited to and is usually a glance at the friend every now and possibly a push to get the other's toys. Over a period of time they will learn to play with toys together and will carry out quite creative, interactive stories with each other.  

When a child is first asked to describe a friend the description will be about external features like the color of hair or size. The description may also contain over behaviors like being loud, chatty, or mean. As children grow developmentally they see past the physical and communicate thoughts, ideas, viewpoints, hurts, and joys. At this point their descriptions of friends will include internal characteristics and one can get a clear idea of the character and personality of their child's friends. 

I think we do the same thing with God. When we first come to Him, we mostly know about Him. When I began to understand that eternal life is about knowing God I began to search my heart to see if I viewed God as an acquaintance or a more intimate relationship. I know the Bible reveals the character, thoughts, heart, and actions of God. So I knew if there was  lack of intimacy between me and Him it was on my part. I began to ask myself, "Do I really know God or do I only know about Him?" It is difficult question to answer and those who are task oriented may not give it much thought. However, those of us who are more relational by design contemplate the question long and hard and are often prone to shame in the process. To avoid that shame I've had to frequently tell myself all relationships, including the relationship I have with God takes work. 

I know I am a person who needs to guard against falling into the trap of thinking of God as an ideal, a law, or a being that is high and aloof. He is a living person with whom I can have an intimate relationship in the here and the now. It is God's very nature to communicate and it's His desire for me to know Him intimately Christ used terms like servants, brothers, friends, and children to describe His relationship with us and these terms denote intimacy to me. A. W. Tozer points out in his book,  The Pursuit of God, "God is a loving Person who is always present, speaking, pleading, loving, working, and manifesting Himself when we have the receptivity necessary to receive the manifestation." 

God wants us to experience Him! I found the following verses that really indicate that! Notice the senses He calls us to use:

Psalm 34:8 -- Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!

Palm 48:8 --  Your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia. From ivory palaces stringed instruments make you glad

John 10:27 -- My sheep here my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

Matthew 5:8 -- Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

If I'm not experiencing God continually, I need to examine my heart and discern why. It could be that I lack knowledge and can rectify that through His Word. It could be because something in my past causes me to doubt that God wants to relate to me in the same ways He relates to others, especially those named in the Bible. But a careful read of His word dispels that lie and shows me me that the people in His Word were as human as me. They were just as fail, just as sinful, and even just as victimized as me. There is not a one of us to whom God doesn't want to reveal Himself. I may at times struggle with the lie that God's daily presence in my life is for others, but the lie is from the enemy. I can choose to confess the unbelief and choose to sit before Him, soaking up His truth, exclaiming I believe and asking Him to help my unbelief.

So, how do I make our relationship with God come alive? First, I have to check my thinking. Do I think of God and the spiritual world as a reality or a fable? I must be ever be mindful that God is a person who thinks, wills, feels, loves, desires, and suffers as we do. I need to remember that to know God is to come face to face with a real person, not an idea, or a theology, or a system. Because He is holy and I am not--I can trust that a face to face meeting with Him will forever change me in some way. God desires me to experience Him and He is not now, nor ever will He play hide and seek. Hebrews 11:6 says, "And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him." He also says that it only takes a mustard-seed-sized faith! 

I can also come to know God through His Words. John 5:39 says, "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me." If I want to know God, I can spend time in His word, not just reading it, but meditating on it and looking at it as a personal love letter from a very personal God. Psalm 46:10 says, "Be still, and know that I am God." Our culture calls us to busyness and I for one am prone to rushed quiet times in which i quickly read a passage and then deliver a quick dissertation of my wants or demands. But my strength, my safety, my security, my joy, and my transformation will never  come in the busy, noisy, messy places of my life, they will come in quietness at the Savior's feet as gaze at Him. 

We will never really desire to spend time in God's Word until we come to recognize and believe that our God is not silent and that His Words are relevant to us today. The Scriptures will help us come alive as we that God uses His Word to articulate His love in very real and personal ways. As we begin to comprehend God's love, we will begin to respond to His love with the desire to love Him in return. 

Tozer also pointed out that the people of the Bible who knew God were never completely satisfied with the depth of their relationship with God. They always longed for more. Moses, who saw God's glory in ways others hadn't expressed this desire in Exodus 33:13, "Now therefore, I pray thee, if I found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in the sight." 

I do not want to settle for knowing about God. Nor do I want to let the complex society I live in or church system I participate in replace the joy of knowing God. Life and all that it holds will always have a way of drawing me away from the true treasure--but those earthly treasures can never satisfy the deep longing for God written on my heart when I was knit in my mother's womb, proof in itself that He desires a relationships with me. Knowing God requires an experience of the mind as I interact through His word, the will as I stand against temptation and choose Him, and my emotions as I sit at His feet to experience His joy and His peace. 

God's Love Demonstrated Part 1

Every so often I find myself in need of revisiting the great love of our God so for the next few weeks I will be writing on the different ways God has chosen to demonstrate His love to us. So often we say we know God loves us, but our actions don't convey that we truly believe it. When trials and temptations come we often find ourselves hearing the enemies voice trying to convince us that we have been forgotten, deserted, or at the least less loved than others we know.

As a young believer, I believed God loved me only because He created me. That belief didn't translate into a passionate, radical, and personal love that a perfect Father has for His children. In my mind it was more like a love of obligation and a sense of "I will put up with you" because I have to kinda love.

One day when my first child was waking up from his first nap in his "big boy" bed, he realized he could get out of the bed by himself. I heard his little feet hit the floor and he ran down the hall and slowed just as he got to the corner and peaked around at me to see if it was okay for him to come to me. I remember my heart beating faster as I heard him running down the hall and I held my arms out for him and he smiled big and ran into them. I sensed in my spirit the Lord saying to me that that was the same love He had toward me. That mean that His attitude when I approached Him in prayer, wasn't impatience. That meant I wasn't a bother demanding His attention. That meant He felt towards me the same kind of delight I felt towards my own child. I realized at the time that I had a hard time accepting that God delighted in me. Over the years I have tried to notice all the different ways God shows us His love. Today, I want to look at one of the most significant ways God demonstrated His love towards us--that is in the person of Jesus. We know God's word says Christ demonstrated His love by dying for us, but He also demonstrated His love by living among us.

The coming of Jesus was in no way a new plan conceived at the last minute by a desperate God watching His children walk in sin. No way! For in eternity past the plan was born in the heart of God. The Creator, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the Sovereign God, chose to veil His glory and leave the incomprehensible beauty of His heavenly home and grow in the dark confinement of a human womb. While His heavenly position entitled Him to be born in a palace and wrapped in purple linens, He opted to be born in the middle of a sheepfold, wrapped in swaddling clothes. He by-passed a gold inlaid cradle for a simple manger so prophetic of His mission as Jehovah's sacrificial Lamb. He chose to limit His limitless abilities and powers to show us He understands us and is a sympathetic High Priest tempted in every way we've ever been tempted, yet without sin. To put it simply, to tell us He loved us Jesus chose to become a man.  

It is hard to comprehend a love deep enough that it would motivate Christ to leave His heavenly home as a baby and become dependent upon a woman who was His creation. It is also hard to understand how He would choose to grow up in a home with half brothers and half sisters who didn't recognize Him for who He was or what He came to do. It's hard to comprehend a love so outrageous it would cause Him who spoke the universe into place to become an apprentice in His stepfather's shop. There He no longer could use His limitless creativity as His medium was hardwood and His tools were tools made by human hands. Rather than speaking things into being, He chose to be limited to the use of His human hands--hands that now became dirty, callused, and rough--just like ours. Yet, those same strong hands revealed God's tender compassion by gently reaching out and blessing the children that followed Him. They were also the same hands that restored sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and mew life to leprous flesh. They were the same hands that washed His disciples feet and healed hurts that were buried in the deepest parts of men's souls.

It is hard to understand a love so outrageous that it would motivate God to take on a human body and become vulnerable enough to experience physical  discomfort like our own--He was prone to hunger, thirst, and exhaustion. He even experienced emotional needs and found it necessary to ask three of His friends to pray for Him as He was facing His impending death. It is hard to understand a love so outrageous that it would motivate Him to set aside His own needs to meet the needs of those pressing in on Him. If they needed food, He provided it. If they needed healing, He healed them. If they needed comfort, He wiped away their tears. If they needed knowledge, He taught them through sermons, parables, and life lessons. If they needed courage, He encouraged them. If they needed rest, He took them aside to get it. If they needed freedom, He fought for it by casting out demons that vexed their souls. Even when His own emotions were raw and painful, He still ministered to others.

With the same voice He had used to speak the universe into place He comforted those who mourned. With the same voice He had used to calm the angry seas He dispelled the fears of His disciples and offered forgiveness to sinners. With the same voice that confronted the Pharisees, calling them vipers, He offered blessing to the children  and mercy to the guilty. It was the same voice He had used to comfort two sisters whose brother had just been laid to rest that turned the situation around with power and majesty, ordering the Lazarus to come forth from the tomb. It was the same voice that spoke with authority to cast out legions of demons that spoke so kindly that it healed the deepest shame of an adulterous woman.

It was His eyes that were capable of seeing everything that could penetrate the hardest of hearts. His eyes that sparkled in the early morning light as He communed with His heavenly Father also shed human tears when He saw the people were like sheep without a shepherd. It was His eyes that were the only eyes that had a right to condemn, but instead, being motivated by outrageous love, chose to use His eyes as instruments of saving grace. For as He gazed into the eyes of people broken by their sin and shame, it is obvious He conveys the heart of the living God--a heart so full of tender mercies, beating with a passions so strong and so outrageous Jesus chose to be the one to make it known by becoming a man. Oh, that we would truly begin to comprehend the outrageous love of God from which we can never be separated. It is not a high and lofty love, it is a rich deeply personal love that has that power to save, heal, and transform.