I’ve heard it said that in a conversation between two people, there are at least “six people.” That is, there are two as they actually are, two as each imagines the other to be, and two as each wants the other to be. Very precious is the conversation between two who are actually who they are!
Today’s devotional reading reviews that worship is about
accepting God as He actually is, and in the process He communicates Himself to
us. Such worship is infinitely precious. Not only does it require that I be
totally transparent before God, but that my understanding of who He is matches
up with what He has revealed about Himself. This revelation came to us through Jesus
Christ . . .
No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the
Father’s side, he has made him known. (John 1:18)
In this short verse, several things are said. One is that God
is not visible, but He exists and He is the only God. Yet that “only God” is referring
to the Son, Jesus Christ, who is at the Father’s side, God made flesh. The Son
is not the Father, but He is God and makes the invisible God visible and known
to us.
There is more. The Son makes God visible, but the Holy
Spirit is also at work to make God known . . .
These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For
the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a
person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no
one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have
received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we
might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words
not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual
truths to those who are spiritual. (1 Corinthians 2:10–13)
When Jesus walked this earth, He knew He would not stay
here forever; when He rose from the dead, He would return to the Father.
However, He would also send the Holy Spirit who would continue to present God to
us, not a god we imagine or a god that we make up, but the genuine, actual God.
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all
the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he
will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will
glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. (John
16:13–14)
Of course, idol worship is forbidden. My God cannot be a
god that I imagine, or make up, or devise in any way. I am not to worship
anything or anyone but the real thing, the real God. Whenever I get confused
about the nature of the real God, then I can check what I am thinking against
the Person of Jesus Christ, who is God visible, a God with skin, a God that
revealed Himself in a way that I can grasp and understand.
The catch? First, I need to believe that God does exist
and that He will reveal Himself to me. Second, I need to believe that Jesus and
the Father are one, that the God who exists and reveals Himself has done so in
the Person of the Son and whatever the Son has done is a revelation of this God
that calls me to worship Him . . .
Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is
in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the
Father who dwells in me does his works. (John 14:10)
Third, I must also believe and accept that what Jesus said
about Himself. That is, He communicates through His Word, the Bible, and that
gives me all that I can know about God and all that I need to know Him, the
true and living God.
For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they
have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and
they have believed that you sent me. (John 17:8)
If I trash the Bible or dismiss it, then my concept of God
will be an error, and my worship a vanity. How can any worship be real if the god
that I worship is not? And how important to remember that He wants me to be
real also!
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