Can You See Me Now? (Part 3)

Over the last few days we have seen how God reveals Himself through creation as well as through His Holy Word. Today, we are going to look at a few ways God not only revealed His personal nature to us but how He demonstrated it for all to see.

In Hebrews 1:1 we are told “God…has in these last days spoken to us by His Son [Jesus].” It is in the life of Jesus that we get a perfect picture of what God the Father is like. Colossians 1:3 says Jesus “is the image of the invisible God,” while Hebrews 1:3 tells us Jesus is the “brightness of [God’s] glory and the express image of His person.” Jesus made it clear in John 14:9 that anyone who has seen Him has seen the Father. Therefore, when reading the Gospel accounts of Jesus, we are getting a perfect representation of the Father in heaven.

When we examine the life of Jesus, we are immediately drawn to His concern for all people. It didn’t matter if He was approached by a Roman centurion, Samaritan, tax collector, lawyer, a rich or poor person, He always had time to answer their questions and share with them their deepest need. He didn’t let someone’s social standing or checkbook balance determine their importance. Every person counted regardless of their ethnic background.

He was also concerned for people who were considered dirty by first century standards. Jesus wasn’t afraid to touch a leper, heal those that were sick from various diseases, give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to those who were mute, restore the strength of those who were crippled, provide food for the poor, and love those considered to be unlovely. He didn’t recoil from anyone regardless of their condition. He reached out past their affliction, all the way to their heart, and healed them from the inside out. After all, it is the sick who need a doctor, and Jesus came as the great Physician to heal the hearts of the spiritually sick.

Jesus also came to teach us God’s expectations. He taught us that all of life is to be lived by loving the LORD our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves. He set the example of loving others and putting them first.  He told us He did not come to be served but to serve and give His life a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). We demonstrate our love for our Father in heaven, whom we have not seen, by loving our neighbor who we have seen. As we have already said, Jesus demonstrated this kind of love.

In Jesus we see the Father. We see His compassion, unconditional love, passion to know us and be known by us, forgiveness for even the most vile human being. In Jesus, God reveals His nature, character, integrity, righteousness, and holiness. Jesus is the exact representation of the Father in heaven.

For some, God seems like an uncaring creator who allows us to suffer way too often. For others, God is our grandfather in the sky who spoils us by giving us everything we want. Neither of these views of God are true. He loves you and came to earth in the form of Jesus so that we could know exactly what He is like. If you really want to know more about God, then start reading one chapter a day from the Gospels. Work your way through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the New Testament over the next ninety days. While you are reading, pay careful attention to Jesus. Ask Him to reveal His nature that you might know Him better.

“Can you See Me Now” Part 1

“Can You See Me Now” Part 2

Can You See Me Now? (Part 2)

The Bible is the best-selling book of all time. It has been translated into more than 2,000 languages. You can find it on cell phones, computers, coffee tables, fireplace mantles, as well as a microfilm copy which was taken to the moon on Apollo 14. It has been carved in stone, written on animal hide, papyrus, paper, and I have even seen a chapter tattooed on someone’s back. Needless to say, the Bible is a very popular book to people all around the world.

Unlike other popular books, people do not purchase a Bible to be entertained. The Bible is God’s revelation of Himself to humanity. It is within the pages of the 66 books of the Bible that we find out about God–His love, mercy, compassion, patience, grace, forgiveness, power, beauty, majesty, and so much more. Page after page we see the Creator reaching out to draw His creation into a loving relationship with Him. The Bible teaches us the commands of God, not that we can live up to them, but that we might see His holiness and righteousness and realize our need for His forgiveness. We see His hand of provision, protection, and providence constantly before us tenderly caring for His precious children.

Too often in my life I have performed my daily Bible readings and crossed that off my list of things to do for that day.  I have been so busy reading the book of God that I have missed the God of the book. Through a series of events this became crystal clear to me, so I decided I needed to change. Now, before I begin reading the Bible I ask Jesus to reveal Himself to me in Scripture. As I read I want to see more of Christ that I might know Him more.

As you take time to read your Bible today, please ask Jesus to reveal Himself to you.  Ask to see His character, integrity, honesty, holiness, righteousness, mercy, compassion, grace and other attributes. Don’t read the Bible to see if you are measuring up. Read the Bible to see Christ and then worship Him!

“Can You See Me Now” Part 1

“Can You See Me Now” Part 3

Behold Your God!

It seems at times that Christians just need to give up trying to introduce Jesus to the world. It may even appear that we no longer can make a difference in this world. With the government and science working to eliminate God, things that are sin being declared as right, and obvious Biblical values being labeled as intolerant hate crimes, it may  appear that the battle is just too great for believers to win.

J.I. Packer addresses this in his discussion of the majesty of God in his classic book “Knowing God.” By elaborating on Isaiah 40 he paints a beautiful picture of our God. Those who stand boldly upon the foundation of Christianity, regardless of the danger or consequences, find their strength and courage through a clear vision of our omnipotent, omniscient, glorious, and majestic God! Our vision of God will determine our perseverance in continuing to fight for the lost souls of those who Satan has blinded.

Behold the one true God as seen in Scripture as Packer writes:

Here God speaks to people whose mood is the mood of many Christians today-despondent people, cowed people, secretly despairing people; people against whom the tide of events has been running for a very long time, people who have ceased to believe that the cause of Christ can ever prosper again. Now see how God through his prophet reasons with them.

Look at the tasks I have done, he says. Could you do them? Could any man do them? “Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance?” (v. 12). Are you wise enough, and mighty enough, to do things like that? But I am, or I could not have made this world at all. Behold your God!

Look now at the nations, the prophet continues: the great national powers, at whose mercy you feel yourselves to be; Assyria, Egypt, Babylon—you stand in awe of them, and feel afraid of them, so vastly do their armies and resources exceed yours. But now consider how God stands related to those mighty forces which you fear so much. “Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket, they are regarded as dust on the scales;. . . Before him all the nations are as nothing; they are regarded by him as worthless and less than nothing” (Is 40:15, 17). You tremble before the nations, because you are much weaker than they; but God is so much greater than the nations that they are as nothing to him. Behold your God!

Look next at the world. Consider the size of it, the variety and complexity of it, think of the nearly five thousand millions who populate it, and of the vast sky above it. What puny figures you and I are, by comparison with the whole planet on which we live! Yet what is this entire mighty planet by comparison with God? “He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in” (Is 40:22). The world dwarfs us all, but God dwarfs the world. The world is his footstool, above which he sits secure. He is greater than the world and all that is in it, so that all the feverish activity of its bustling millions does no more to affect him than the chirping and jumping of grasshoppers in the summer sun does to affect us. Behold your God!

Look, fourthly, at the world’s great ones-the governors whose laws and policies determine the welfare of millions; the would-be world rulers, the dictators and empire builders, who have it in their power to plunge the globe into war. Think of Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar, think of Alexander, Napoleon, Hitler. Think, today, of Clinton and Saddam Hussein. Do you suppose that it is really these top men who determine which way the world shall go? Think again, for God is greater than the world’s great men. “He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing” (Is 40:23). He is, as the prayer book says, “the only ruler of princes.” Behold your God!

But we have not finished yet. Look, lastly, at the stars. The most universally awesome experience that mankind knows is to stand alone on a clear night and look at the stars. Nothing gives a greater sense of remoteness and distance; nothing makes one feel more strongly one’s own littleness and insignificance. And we who live in the space age can supplement this universal experience with our scientific knowledge of the actual factors involved—millions of stars in number, billions of light years in distance. Our minds reel; our imaginations cannot grasp it; when we try to conceive of unfathomable depths of outer space, we are left mentally numb and dizzy.

But what is this to God? “Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing” (Is 40:26). It is God who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing” (Is 40:26). It is God who brings out the stars; it was God who first set them in space; he is their Maker and Master—they are all in his hands and subject to his will. Such are his power and his majesty. Behold your God!

Source: Packer, J. I. (2011-09-26). Knowing God (pp. 97-98). Intervarsity Press. Kindle Edition.