It’s well known that many people assume that other people think like they do. Those who tell lies assume that everyone else is a liar. My loving mom assumed that every mother sacrificially loves their children. A friend assumes that “everyone talks and behaves differently depending on who they are with” — which reveals more about him than he realizes.
I know this happens because I make assumptions too. I used to think that everyone told the truth. After a few betrayals and heartbreaks I realized that is not correct. Worse yet, I’ve realized I’m not beyond stretching the truth myself. However, I’ve also realized that how I appear to others is not always correct about who I am. I can be seen according to their assumptions and prejudices even though I’d like to appear BLAMELESS. In studying that biblical word, I found this statement about God:
Psalm 18:25–27. “With the merciful you show yourself merciful; with the blameless man you show yourself blameless; with the purified you show yourself pure; and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous. For you save a humble people, but the haughty eyes you bring down.”
God does not change. He is blameless, a God of mercy and purity. However, this tendency to ‘see what I am being the way others are’ also shows up in my view of God, or as this verse says, I can falsely see in Him what is true about me. However, the Bible says if I want to see the purity of God, I need to be rid of the impurity in my own life. Jesus did say, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.”
Again, if I want to see the blamelessness of God, I need to get rid of the sin in my life. Proverbs 10:29 hints at this with, “The way of the Lord is a stronghold to the blameless, but destruction to evildoers.”
While it seems foolishness to define God by my own characteristics, this is a good way to determine what needs to change in my own life. As I read about Him and find myself doubting that God is just like He says He is, then maybe my problem is using my self-centered filter. In other words, if I think God does not care about me or about the starving folks in the world, could it be because I’m the one who does not care about God or about those hungry people?
Jesus came to redeem sinners. He also came to reveal God to us because this principle works another way: if I see what God is actually like, then what I see in Him transforms me!
It is important to know that the Bible describes Him as totally free from defects, spotless and sinless.
Hebrews 7:26. “For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.”
1 Peter 1:18–19. “Know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.”
Hebrews 9:13–14. “For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”
God knew how badly I needed to see Him as He is — so He sent His Son to open my eyes. Colossians 1:21–23 personalized says,
“And I, who once was alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present me holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed I continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that I have heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven . . . .”
GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. Seeing God as He is without any filter of assuming He is like me changes my life. As Scripture says, when I gaze into His glory, I am transformed by what I see. It works out in practical ways. For instance, I quit complaining and arguing and start love others —
Philippians 2:14–16. “Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.”
1 Thessalonians 3:12–13. “May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.”
Such is God’s amazing grace that He would see me in Christ and like Christ — only because He has revealed Christ to my eyes and heart . . . !
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