Who is God? This question defines our very existence. With our culture’s popular opinion straying further and further from biblical values, this question is being answered by more and more voices with vastly differing opinions. So who is right? How do we know who God is? What is He like? Can we even know? Absolutely.
Think about yourself. All of us have had people think well of us or ill of us throughout our lives—sometimes thinking more of us than is accurate and sometimes thinking more negatively about us than is accurate. And we think likewise of others. How important it is for us to remember that we and they are not totally defined by opinions. We are who we are regardless of what others think of us.
The same could be said of God.
The analogy fails in with the fact that humans change. Our inner person can change and develop over time and will be impacted by the opinions of others about us for good or ill. But God never changes. He is who He is regardless of what opinions we hold about Him. Only HE can rightfully define Himself.
Thus it is vastly important for us to abandon the culture’s untrustworthy ideas about who God is and cling only to those definitions that He assigns Himself. Incorrect ideas about God are not simply harmless personal thoughts. Our ideas of who God is will have far reaching effects on our life and our understanding of creation, our identity and the value of people. Therefore, God longs to be known for who He is! For indeed He is beautiful, glorious and marvelous and no man-made definition can match Him. We must allow God to define himself for us by His Word and by the character of Christ.
Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’”(John 14:5-9 ESV).
If we have seen Jesus we have seen the Father!
He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high (Hebrews 1:3 ESV).
We do not need to wonder what God is like. We do not need to struggle to understand His character or his nature. We do not need to wonder what He thinks or feels about us. All that has been revealed for us in Christ! Indeed! Because we know now who He is, we now can truly know who WE are IN Him.
From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:16-19 ESV).
For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross (Colossians 2:9-14 ESV).
Our God is a Righteous, Holy, Jealous, Sovereign, Faithful, Patient, Generous, Loving God. In sending us His Son he has made Himself known to us! Indeed! He has made himself known to us and if we are in Christ He will make Himself known IN us! What an amazing God we have!
So, the next time you hear someone who is struggling with their idea of a god who is petty or cruel or hateful or one of a million negative characteristics the world tries to assign to their ideas of god, you can simply say, “I don’t believe in a god like that either. The God I believe in—God, the only God, the real God—is represented exactly by His Son Jesus.”
Heavenly Father by your Spirit enable we your children to show the world who Christ is, as Christ has shown us who you are. Amen.
Pastor Brian Torres