Do you want God to know you?
Or do you want to know God?
In today’s church and among younger Christians, I often hear people talk about having a “relationship” with God – which is absolutely correct. However, most of our culture seems to think of “relationship” as something that is casual and doesn’t take any real work. Too many of our relationships end when one party gets dissatisfied, usually because they feel the other party in the relationship has quit caring about their feelings, or “just doesn’t understand me.”
I read this quote recently from a student at Calvin College, a Christian college in Michigan, who said, “When I realize that my faith wasn’t necessarily about the Christian Reformed church and it wasn’t even necessarily about the Bible, but about my relationship with God and that God is all-compassing and loving, I felt very free.”
See what I mean? "My faith wasn't necessarily about the Bible, but about my relationship with God."
But how does this young person know God? By his emotion, by what makes him feel loved and affirmed and even approved. It's like we think the important thing is that God knows us, as if we're some kind of mystery to the God who, according to Scripture, knows the very hairs on our head (Luke 12:7).
The issue isn’t God knowing me. He knows me; heck, He created me.
The issue is, how well do I know God?
Occasionally I like to ask the following trick question: How many stories are in the Bible? The answer, really, is just one – the story of God. All Scripture is designed to reveal God to us, through many mini-stories, if you will.
And how do we get to know God? It’s rather old-fashioned, of course, but the best way is to read His Word.
I know, I know. That’s what your fundamentalist grandfather always said. But where is the emotion in reading Scripture? Where is the feel good?
Oh, it’s not that folks are against a structured, daily reading of The Bible, but there sometimes seems to be a “feeling” that it isn’t really critical, because, they argue, God only cares about our heart.
I was going through the book of Job – again – and something in the last chapter hit me in a way that I hadn’t thought about before. It’s pretty simple and straightforward, but maybe because the book is so long (42 chapters), with so much dialogue, I was ready to simply skip through the resolution and hadn’t given the last chapter the complete study it deserves.
But right there after God finishes his long monologue where he reminds Job that He is God and no one else – least of all Job – is, God turns to Job’s friends and “After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.”
We get so caught up in God talking to Job that we sometimes forget that Jobs’ friends could apparently hear God, or that God actually talks to the three friends and says, in essence, “You thought you were speaking about me and on my behalf to Job, but you were only speaking from your own wisdom and foolishness.” And God says to them, “You better ask Job for forgiveness, and if Job forgives you, I will forgive you.” There is a whole chapter’s worth of implications in that passage, but I’m not going there right now.
No, what struck me is God getting angry because these three well-meaning and pretty knowledgeable men did not speak the truth about God, and God didn’t (doesn’t) like being spoken of incorrectly.
For some reason, I started reading the book of Ezekiel the other day.
And if you want to know what makes God unhappy, read Ezekiel. It’s really pretty brutal. More specifically, in the context I’m trying to make, read Ezekiel 13 from The Message, the passage that says (and I’ve edited for space), “Son of man, preach against the prophets of Israel who are making things up out of their own heads and calling it ‘prophesying.’ Preach to them the real thing. Tell them, ‘Listen to God’s Message!’ God, the Master, pronounces doom on the empty-headed prophets who do their own thing and know nothing of what’s going on! …. All they do is fantasize comforting illusions and preach lying sermons. They say ‘God says . . .’ when God hasn’t so much as breathed in their direction. … Aren’t your sermons tissues of lies, saying ‘God says . . .’ when I’ve done nothing of the kind? Therefore—and this is the Message of God, the Master, remember—I’m dead set against prophets who substitute illusions for visions and use sermons to tell lies. The fact is that they’ve lied to my people. They’ve said, ‘No problem; everything’s just fine,’ when things are not at all fine. …”
If that doesn’t put some fear into you, I don’t know what does.
I write about God, my faith, and even teach a bit when asked. There are all kinds of passages warning people who teach about the extra burden put on them, but these two – the reaction of God at the end of Job and God’s reaction in Ezekiel – really hit me. Because the truth is, I have talked about God my whole life, and I know that things I believed to be true about God 15, 20, 30 years ago were not correct. It’s what I believed at the time, but age and study and learning have shown me where I was wrong, and I am afraid I’ll have to answer for not telling the truth about God, even if I meant well (as I believe Job’s friends meant well).
So how do we know about God?
Now we get to the point.
The primary way we get to understand God is by reading the Bible. God’s Word. Holy Scripture. As Luther would say, “Sola scriptura,” which means that Scripture alone is authoritative for the faith and practice of the Christian. The Bible is complete, authoritative, and true.
I’m not talking memorizing Bible verses, although that’s not a bad thing. Personally, I can’t give you chapter and verse, yet when someone starts quoting a verse of Scripture chances are I know it and can say it along with them (in one translation or another). I know people who can give you chapter and verse and I wish I was like them. I even bought a little book called “52 Verses Every Christian Should Memorize” or something like that, and really worked on memorization. At the end, I knew the verses – but still couldn’t recall book, chapter and verse!
What I’m talking about is just reading. Letting the words seep into your brain, your heart, your soul. It’s reading with a purpose – not to make ourselves smarter, but to know God better.
Jesus, in Matthew 22:37-38 (I know the verse by heart, but had to look up the reference), said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”
All your heart, soul and mind, which is pretty thorough. And as we have seen in Job and Ezekiel, wrong thoughts about God produce wrong belief about God. You can’t really love what you don’t really know.
Paul writes in Philippians 1, “It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” Love “abounds” with knowledge and discernment.
Paul, again, in 2 Corinthians 3:18, “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
We become what we behold. When I was a kid, I wanted to be like the characters John Wayne played in the movies. So I watched and studied them, and tried to walk and talk like John Wayne (which conjures up a pretty funny image, I know).
Likewise, when we read and study God’s Word, we find it transforms us. We find ourselves suddenly losing interest in doing things we used to do; find that better person that reflects the image of God that resides in us. We start to actually look more like Christ! (Paul even says we should be “imitators” of Christ in Ephesians 5).
Paul, in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, writes, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
Most of us want to do “good works.” Young people today, in particular, seem more interested in getting involved in making the world a better place to live than they are in getting a good job, a career, etc. Many young people honestly desire to do something for God. But what Paul said is pretty clear: you can’t be equipped to really do good work until you are immersed in the word of God.
The Bible shows us God’s priorities, His values, His mission, His heart. It shows us what he has been doing in the world, and what He is doing. It shows us, as one writer said, how to love “the forgotten and the misfit. It shows us the value of shepherding our families. It introduces us to the generosity of other Christians (2 Corinthians 8:1–7), and calls us to be openhanded with what God gives us. It heralds the sanctity of every human life and inspires us to fight for the unborn. It declares that race should not be a barrier to Christian unity, but a beautiful occasion for it.”
But along the way, we have to know how to speak correctly about God. And that only comes from knowing God’s Word.
I don’t know exactly where I heard this so I don’t know who to give the credit to, so let me just say this isn’t my original idea. But the words went something like, “This world is not falling apart; God’s plan is coming together.” I like that. It is a great reminder, and a great comfort. But I don’t understand what God’s plan is unless I see the picture presented in Scripture.
When I find myself in those times when I struggle with prayer or reading Scripture, I know down in my soul that I must continue.
It’s like talking to my wife – sometimes I have to stay with the communication process even when it seems we’re on totally different levels. And eventually, because of our commitment, we get back on the same page.
I like the way John Piper put it when addressing the loss of joy in your relationship with God: “… I am reminding you (1) that God is present in the darkness, (2) that he is holding on to his people when they feel barely able to hold on to him, and (3) that though you may feel unsure of your salvation in this struggle, you may be totally sure you will not have salvation if you give up the struggle and walk away.”
You can’t have your relationship with God without the Bible. You can’t grow in your relationship with God without the Bible.
The good news (quite literally) is that we do indeed have access to the Bible - and, therefore, to being able to speak truthfully about God.
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