Faith In A God We Don’t
Know
There is a belief I have seen among many believers in the
church that worries me. What I have
noticed are a people who are willing to know of God, but unwilling to know
Him. They take what they read in their
Bible and what they hear taught by others to create their own understanding of
who they think Jesus is. They build a
view of Jesus in their minds; based off the knowledge they have accumulated and
the understanding that they have, and make decisions using that. They are willing to listen to people tell
them how much their God loves them, but not willing to experience it
themselves. They see how God likes to
bless His children, but see only the outward expressions of it. They look for the scripture and the action
that leads to the response they want. If
they want to be blessed, they pray like Jabez.
If they want security, they pray Psalm 91. They have been told how to handle their situations
by others, and as they continue to act in the methods they’ve been taught, they
create a system for how God works and what it takes for His rewards.
Inevitable, their god will fail them. Calamity comes along and they can’t
understand how their loving god would let that happen to them. For example, they can’t understand why they
can’t find a job, because their view of God is someone who will take care of
all their physical needs first. They put
everything into their family, believing that a loving God wouldn’t let
something happen, so when it does they fall apart. They make financial decisions based off a belief
that God prospers His own, and find themselves overwhelmed in debt. When their model of God fails, they don’t
know what to believe.
Too many of us have created an idol of our own God. An idol of our beliefs is as real as an idol
of gold. It is easier to create a god
that covers our comfort and fits into what we want to believe, than to come to
know a God that may not believe as we do.
Paul described people who do this as “holding to
a form of godliness, although they have denied its power” (2 Timothy 3:1). At a men’s conference I attended, I
remember one of the speakers saying: “One day I realized that God and I were
incompatible, and one of us had to change.”
Whether it be a golden Buddha, or a mental Jesus; when we put our faith
in what we understand, we set our path to failure. Faith must be in a person, and not a belief.
We Can Know God
What should be one of the most important truths of
Christianity is that we can know God.
Let me be clear here. I don’t
mean the “spiritual knowing God” that we sometimes assign, where we know of
Him, have fleeting impressions of direction, and have an occasional verse come to
mind when we need it. That is not
knowing God. I mean knowing Him like we
do family. The kind of knowing where we
see them often, talk on the phone, send funny messages during the day, rely
upon them for advice, and spend our time with them. We too often think of God as that big entity
way up there in the sky that we can never understand. This view is not scriptural.
I am the good shepherd, and I know
my own and My own know me. — (John 10:14)
Jesus taught that His sheep would know Him. Surely, we can be as good as sheep. How did the sheep know their shepherd? They knew him by how he looked, his voice,
his smell, and even the way he walked.
Jesus came to earth to show us the way back to the Father. We can know Him, not just in knowledge, but
in person.
Behold, I stand at the door and
knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and
will dine with him, and he with Me. — (Revelation 3:20)
The way has been set and our Lord is waiting for us. God provided everything we need, which leads
us back to a core truth.
Draw near to God and He will draw
near to you. — (James 4:8)
We are as close to God as we want to be.
We have little to do with being saved, but everything to do
with how close we come to God. Salvation
has opened the way, but we must walk into it. In the end, we initiate the closeness in the
relationship. It’s up to us to really
dig into God. We must desire the
relationship more than anything else. We
pursue Him as we would a lover. If we
draw near, God is faithful to come close as well. He stands at the door and knocks, but we must
let Him in. God will rarely force
Himself upon us.
https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-We-Forgot-Knowing-Word/dp/1973650444/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1550891063&sr=8-1&keywords=Jesus+we+forgot
https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-We-Forgot-Knowing-Word/dp/1973650444/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1550891063&sr=8-1&keywords=Jesus+we+forgot
