Understanding God

This morning as I went to wake up the children I asked Cohen (three years old) if he had any good dreams. He said, "yeah!" I asked if he dreamed about me. He said, "No." "Then what did you dream about?" I asked. "God" he said. "What did God look like?" "He looked like God" Cohen said. It's like duh daddy!

A.W. Tozer says, "What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us." He also says, "the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God." Uncontainable. Psalm 145:3 says, “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; his greatness is unsearchable.” God’s greatness is beyond our discovering. Because God is infinite and we are finite, we can never fully understand God. As the psalmist says, “Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure” (Psalm 147: 5). In chapter 11 of the book of Romans, the Apostle Paul goes to great lengths to speak on the history of God’s plan of redemption. As a way of conclusion he says, “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and inscrutable his ways” (Romans 11: 33)!

The uncontainable nature of God can be overwhelming when considering all we have to rely on is finite language to express an infinite nature. The incomprehensibility of God implies that if we are to know anything about God then it must be revealed to us. We understand God best by looking to Jesus. God is made known to us through Jesus. He (Jesus) says, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son expect the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Matthew 11: 27).

Even though we cannot know God exhaustively, we can know God personally. Some people say that we cannot know God personally, but that we can only know facts about God or know what God does. Others have said that we can only know God as he relates to us. I John 5: 20 says, “We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ.” The richness of the Christian life is that we can have a personal relationship with God. We have far greater privileges than knowing facts (nature, characteristics, etc) regarding God. We speak to God in prayer. God speaks through the Word. We are aware that God dwells among us and within us to bless us. I am reminded of this when the temptation comes for ministry to become routine, mundane, or less personal.