Most Christians are unable to "contemplate" the timelessness of eternity. Our lives are started and ended in the cycle of the ticking clock. Every experience we have is within the allotment of time, our everyday lives are dictated within it's parameters.
Then into this structured outline God reveals Himself to us as a timeless, limitless, Being whose Word shows Him to be: all knowing, all powerful, and all present. On top of that He asks us to believe in Him and these impossible traits "to understand as Truth". So here we are Man in a timed creation trying to comprehend a timeless Being with abilities that are beyond our understanding or capabilities.
This simple "fact" with all it's complexity is not complicated at all. God has given us a tool to use that levels the playing field........Faith! Simply put "just believe". Just believe everything that contradicts everything we "experience" in life and "know that He is God."
Wow! Isn't that a lot to expect? Dismiss the carnal and embrace faith "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen."
Why would He do that?
To set Himself apart!
In the heavens, on the earth, under the seas, in all of creation.
Faith starts with God separating Himself from all of His creation. He is the creator and there is none beside Him. He is above, below, beyond, and fills "His" creation. We, (because of this), "live and move and have our being in Him." He built creation on the fact that none of it could obtain to His level, even in heaven He is on the highest mount, He not only rules over it but He fills it also. All the angels and beings there are in His presence and have awe for His glory. He reigns without question or need of explanation. It is His proof and testimony to us that He is different. So different that we needed a bridge to understand the immensity of His being so He gave us "faith" to understand and Jesus Christ (His sacrifice) through whom we have "fellowship" with Him, as He once did "in the beginning" with man in the Garden of Eden.
This is a confounding mystery for us "of limited time" but none the less True. It is like the "gap that has been set" between the bosom of Abraham and the living. That one was as impossible to cross as the "knowledge of God" is for us to comprehend. Knowing that God our Father has made a bridge between God and Man: Christ, and from carnal understanding to divine revelation which is faith. Without faith it is not only impossible to "know" God, but it is impossible to please Him also. That is because God wants us to first "believe that He is" before He "reveals Himself to us." Did you ever wonder why some "believers" actually "have" a revelation of the "Almighty" and some don't seem to have a clue? That's because "those that believe", regardless of human intellectual level, trust God's Words by "faith" and need no explanation of : who, what, when, or how. "God said it that is enough." These believers seem to have not only "confidence" in His Word but "the confirming "power" from His Word.
I know that you have "met up" with one or two in your walk with Christ. You may have noticed that they may not have all the answers for the "deep things of Christ" when you ask but they exude the confidence that in His time the answers will come and "knowing how to explain everything" isn't part of "Maturity in Christ" nor a measure of that relationship.
God is a mystery! Period.
He reveals Himself to those that seek Him and the whole revelation of Jesus Christ belongs to His Church not just one person. Some have more and some have less but all have "what they need" for where they are at based on the "asking, seeking and knocking" they have done.
Being honest here some "called by His name" just don't care to "grow in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ" but hold the "Finished Work" to end at salvation, and do not include "all the promises and commands" that Christ passed on by the working of the Holy Spirit to "comfort, guide, instruct, and empower" us.
God's whole plan in creation was to "show His Love (Christ) toward mankind so we could experience the "substance of things hoped for" and the "evidence of things unseen" by faith and thereby show our Love for Him by obeying His commands: "If you love me you will obey my commands". This has nothing to do with "knowing or understanding" it has to do with "obedience" and faith. Read and believe then understanding will come when God "reveals Himself" in accordance with "His will."
God knows you better than yourself. He knows what you need to know for each day, thereby "give us now our daily bread" ( His word is real meat), daily! Daily revelation, daily grace, daily knowledge just for "that day."
Here is an exercise in faith:
Find a private room where you will be undisturbed. Prepare yourself for the quest because it could take longer than you think. Then "enter in" to the closet and "seek His face". Not "seek what you want to know", not "seek what you want to hear". But "seek His face, His wisdom, His knowledge, His revelation," convenient for this day! Not tomorrow, for it never comes; not yesterday, for it is past; but for "this day" because that is the only day you are given to "preform His works".
Then "expect" God to meat you there through His Courier the Holy Spirit and deliver unto you all His instructions for "today."
Go in "expecting!"
Come out having received.
And your faith will increase.
Lets face it most have not faith because they don't seek it. They don't want it. "He who is given much, much will be expected." Most don't want that responsibility. I would personally be given "more" and have the expectation of "more expected" than to be "powerless" in my preaching, witness and testimony. Either God exist and is an active proof in those that believe on Him, or He is just a practice in religion and exists only to be abused and taken advantage of because we just don't "believe" the Truth that sets us free.
Let me say this with impunity:
God is who He is regardless of what you believe.
Let God be True and every man a liar! Period.
The "revelation of God/Jesus Christ" doesn't depend on you, your practices, your "brand" of faith, your religion, or your beliefs. It stands on God's unchangeable Word "Who became flesh and dwelt among us", because that's all that's needed for salvation, revelation and life in this world and in the one to come.
The Bible never says to "understand" God: that is an oppression of man!
The Bible says to "know God" implying "a revelation given by God", not for carnal bragging rights, but for the realization that God is eternal in the heavens, Holy, unapproachable, without sin, and unexplained by mortal man. Just the fact that He is shown to be omnipotent (all powerful), omnipresent (existing everywhere at once through all time), and omniscient (all knowing, which means: all things, thoughts, prayer, requests, all a fore thoughts of everyone, every where, before all time existed, of everybody at the time of or before the creation ever existed. Plus He backs up this Truth in His Word (that became flesh, Jesus Christ) so we could never diminish it by time or philosophy or opinion, in writing to preserve it "forever" through out the span of "our creation" into eternity. "He cannot change!"
So who's right here? God's way or ours?
Will you know Him by your own devices or by His design for intimacy with Him?
Will you have head knowledge? Or revelation "heart knowledge? By His Word!
Will you submit to His ways or continue to practice our way of the flesh.
I will confess here against popular opinion and practice:
I will not know Him on my terms.
I will not know His revelation to me on my timeline of interest and "want."
I will practice "waiting on the Lord", for wisdom "convenient for this day."
If my life is His then so is my mind, spirit and soul, that He should "provide" for daily according to my (and others in my life) needs for "this" day.
I have learned "not" to run ahead, and I have not tried to "fall" behind in the daily ministration of grace and faith due me.
I have not the complete revelation of Jesus Christ but have the continuing benefit of it as I "wait upon the Lord" for a regular "feeding" that I "might know Him."
My life is "secured by Him and complete in Him" convenient for each day.
At days end I know that I could not have done less but realize I could have done more.
His grace and Love is sufficient.
Now that you have read this:
What will change in your "asking, seeking, and knocking?"
Will your expectation of "your revelation of who God is" increase.
Will you give Him "His place" as Lord of Lords and King of Kings?
Will you continue to think that you have total knowledge of the revelation of Jesus Christ?
Or will you "live your life each day" receiving a greater, more abundant "continuing revelation" of Our Father which art in Heaven?
If the later:
You shall receive according to your faith and His will daily until you stand face to face in His presence.
God bless and keep as you grow in the grace and knowledge of Him, who is and was and shall come again!
With all Love in the Spirit
J&E inTn
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