Mr. Standfast

"Nothing taken for granted; everything received with gratitude; everything passed on with grace." G. K. Chesterton

January 17, 2005

Knowing God

Wow, I've just taken 4 days off from blogging! How can it be? Actually, I'd not intended to do so, but it simply happened.

Several conversations of late have got me thinking about God's "knowable-ness." What grace, that Jehovah, the Maker of Heaven and Earth, should choose also to make Himself known to us. His name, His attributes, His very nature.

Much hinges on this. God's invitation to fallen men is that we may know Him. God's gift is to make Himself knowable. To presume that He cannot be known is simply intellectual arrogance masquerading as humility.

God's invitation is to knowledge. Such knowledge can only come from above. Imagine God lived at the top of a high mountain peak. We mortals are all climbing, picking our way, grasping for footholds, trying to get to God, but the sides of this mountain are just too steep. We can't make it. We cannot, in other words, think our way to God, philosophize our way to God, or good-deed our way to Him, any more than we can flap our arms and fly to Him.

No, He must come down, and does. For no other reason than love. Amazing, isn't it? He enters into our world of darkness, stress, and conflict, and the darkness and the stress and the conflict cannot stand against Him. Relentlessly He makes Himself known, His peace, His lovingkindness, His power, and the knowledge of Him breaks us and repairs us, brings us to our knees and lifts us up again, sometimes at the very same moment.

This knowledge must result in love, since God is love. To know God is to know love, and to love Him back is the only natural response. Knowledge of the one true God releases us from bondage to lies and distortions. Knowledge of God grounds the logic of our lives in truth at last.

And where does the Galilean prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, fit into all this? He is that truth of God made visible, touchable, even hurtable--human--right here in our walking-around world. Jesus is the Father's ultimate revelation of Himself. I want you to know me, he says. And here is how I will make myself knowable. I will come among you, in the form of a man, and yet I will remain, throughout, the great I am! What I do then, what I teach, what I demontrate by every word and deed, that is a window into the very heart of the maker of Heaven and earth.

Jesus, lover of my soul
Jesus, I will never let You go
You've taken me from the miry clay
Set my feet upon the rock and now I know

I love You, I need You
Though my world may fall, I'll never let You go
My Savior, my closest friend
I will worship You until the very end

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home