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. My role as a minister is not to prove God’s existence. I am called to reveal God and I can do that only through the way in which God has revealed God self. 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). As Karl Barth says, “God is unknown as our Father, as the Creator, to the degree that he is not made known by Jesus.” My responsibility is to point people to Jesus as they ask, “What is God like?”
God’s limitless possibility can be pushed to the point of God being disinterested in God’s world. Jesus does not allow this. Jesus teaches that God suffers with us in our suffering and rejoices with us in our joys. Two years ago I sat with an elderly lady who experienced major loss: a child, a husband, and intense surgery of another child. She was not concerned with God’s limitless possibility, but with the reality of God identifying with her suffering.
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.
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