Lord, I want to know You. I want to know what You are like. I want to live in You, but I can’t live in You if I know nothing about You. Reveal to me the glory of Yourself. Then will I be able to live right.
A man wanted to talk to me about a book he had read. In the book, the author, a well-known lawyer, claims that God has learned over time how to handle the human race. This lawyer apparently states that in the early days of Genesis, God did not know how to deal well with the human race. He condemned the world to the flood and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. In time, however, he learned to be more merciful, and when we reach the New Testament, he had gotten it right. Today, of course, God thinks as we do.
I’m not surprised at such a portrayal of God. Modern culture often has a small God, and this God is no different. I am sure that this lawyer is a fine lawyer, but he does not know God. His god is too small. The lawyer has made himself God’s judge. Unfortunately, that is not how God sees things.
The idea that we can think of God in any way we please is nonsense. It assumes that God has not revealed Himself. And it hurts us.
Our thoughts of God determine the quality of our faith. Tozer was right when he said that “the low view of God entertained almost universally among Christians is the cause of a hundred lesser evils everywhere among us” (p. viii. Knowledge of the Holy). We will not be morally pure if we worship a simplistic God. We will have no power to transform our world and no depth in our souls if our view of God is average. If our god is less than God, our lives will be less than Christian. Unfortunately, the Western church today suffers from this problem. Our view of God is too small. We are slow to attempt great things because we forget the greatness of the One we serve. We avoid risky steps of faith because we do not believe God is faithful. We are prone to make comfort our driving force because we subconsciously think that we are the center of life. We dabble with heresy because we ignore what is revealed. We play with moral impurity because we forget that God is a consuming fire. In each case above, you may say other factors also contribute, and I will not squabble with you, but our view of God is a foundational factor. If we really saw God for who He is, we would take more steps of faith, attempt greater things for Christ, and be morally purer and doctrinally truer.
Now our view of God must not be solely an endeavor of the head. Many people could technically tell you all the right answers about God if they were asked, but they don’t live as if those answers were true. They say they know God, but they don’t live as if they know God. They merely have correct answers. If we are to know well the Christian faith as it appears in the Bible, we must think often, with devotion, right thoughts of God. Any understanding of Christian beliefs begins with an understanding of God. When we begin to think of God aright, and do so from the heart, we will have the foundation laid for all other thinking about the Christian faith.
We must have before our hearts and minds a certain God. God is not any god, and we are not free to think of the Holy One in any way we please. The follower of Jesus believes that God has revealed Himself through the Scriptures and that we must thus base our thoughts of God on those Scriptures. And since God is the foundation of theology, we shall begin our discussion of Christian beliefs with God. Beginning next week, for the next few months I shall briefly highlight certain attributes of God as He reveals Himself in Scripture.
