Today, I’m going to focus on two words: KNOWING GOD. Why did Jesus (God) come to earth? Underlying all the many reasons there could be is this one fundamental reason: so that we could KNOW GOD. As Rachel Held Evans wrote, “We could not become like God, so God became like us.” And John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.” Jesus has shown us who God is. Jesus has shown us the character and full being of God. Colossians 1:15 says, “He is the exact image of the invisible God.” Hebrews 1:3, “This Son perfectly mirrors God, and is stamped with God’s nature.” And John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
Notice the use of the term “the Word” in the John verse. “The Word” means Jesus. Often Christians use “the Word” to mean the Bible. How would it affect your understanding if every time you read “the Word” in the Bible you understood it to mean Jesus? When I made that switch in my understanding, it helped me to KNOW GOD better. It pulled me away from worshiping the Bible and believing the Bible was what I was following, and helped me to worship and follow God with greater understanding.
Christians need to be careful in their use of the Bible. Are we using it for our own purposes, or are we truly looking for God within its’ pages? Are we taking each verse and making a doctrine out of it, or are we looking at the big picture of God’s story over time and listening to what God is saying to us through the many genres used in the Scriptures? Are we using it to judge others or are we using it to learn and grow closer to the Creator ourselves?
The following quote from Rachel Held Evans helps me to gain perspective on the Bible: “If you are looking for verses with which to support slavery, you will find them. If you are looking for verses with which to abolish slavery, you will find them. If you are looking for verses with which to oppress women, you will find them. If you are looking for verses with which to liberate or honor women, you will find them. If you are looking for reasons to wage war, you will find them. If you are looking for reasons to promote peace, you will find them. If you are looking for an out-dated, irrelevant ancient text, you will find it. If you are looking for truth, believe me, you will find it. This is why there are times when the most instructive question to bring to the text is not “what does it say?”, but “what am I looking for?” I suspect Jesus knew this when he said, “ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened.” If you want to do violence in this world, you will always find the weapons. If you want to heal, you will always find the balm.”
This Advent, may I seek to KNOW GOD as found in the baby Jesus. May reading the Bible through the lens of Jesus help me to gain a greater understanding of God’s character. May I find life by finding God.
“You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. Yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” John 5:39-40
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