God is mysterious. Very mysterious. Read the Old Testament and you quickly discover how mysterious He is – and even then, we don’t know all that much. But is He so mysterious that He is unknowable? Beyond our human ability to understand Him? Apparently not, because God has invited us to know Him and understand Him …
Jeremiah 29:13-14 (NIV)
“You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.
14 I will be found by you," declares the LORD, ..."
So, there it is. God wants us to seek Him and know Him. But how? There is no way any human being can fully understand God. But I don’t think we were meant to know everything about God because we just can’t. And God knows that. God is way too big to be fully known. God spoke to Moses and said to him, sometime after the burning bush encounter, that He did not fully reveal Himself to Abraham, or Isaac or Jacob …
Exodus 6:2-3 (NIV)
"I am Yahweh. 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as Shaddai [God Almighty], but by My name, Yahweh, I did not make Myself fully known to them.”
Really? How many times did God personally visit Abraham? And Jacob wrestled with God. Yet these great patriarchs never knew God fully. Moses experienced more of God than any of them, yet even He never fully knew God … In fact, God reminded Moses that when he heard God’s voice, he saw no shape or form. God is beyond anything our minds can comprehend. So, what does it mean to have a personal relationship with this kind of God? I mean, that’s a hard thing for most people to nut out.
We worship a God of infinite mystery, yet His breath is in each of us … every day. What a paradox! We can never know Him fully, but He wants us to know Him intimately. So, we can safely conclude then that He is knowable and accessible. Even in heaven, God can never be fully known. There is a scene in Revelation where the 24 elders suddenly see in a new moment something more amazing about God and His glory that they did not see just a moment ago. It is so mind-blowing that they throw off their crowns and start worshipping Him with fresh praise …
Revelation 4:9-11 (NIV)
Whenever the living creatures give glory, honour and thanks to Him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever, 10 the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say: 11 "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for You created all things, and by Your will they were created and have their being."
Although there is far too much to know of God in the one spiritual journey of our lives, He is definitely knowable. God’s Word gives us some clues about the process by which we can start to know Him more intimately. For example, the apostle Peter quoting Deuteronomy writes …
1 Peter 1:16 (NIV) for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."
This is incredibly important because in Hebrews 12:14 it says, “Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.”
This is a major clue in preparing to really know God – holiness, which is different to righteousness. The process of sanctification brings us more and more into a condition of holiness and this is so that we can know God deeply and serve Him powerfully. Holiness is about our heart’s condition, whereas righteousness is about our position before God – we’re saints now, children of God on a journey towards holiness which is about knowing Him more and more deeply.
The distance between the mystery of God and knowing Him more and more is holiness. Remember what the apostle Paul has said about this?
Philippians 1:6 (NIV) “… being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
That’s about sanctification. Yes, I know, big word. Sanctification is a big deal with God because it produces holiness in us. In simple terms sanctification is the process by which we allow God to purge our soul and body of anything in us that is opposing the proper functioning of our sanctified spirit (that’s our reborn spirit), and thus keeping us unholy. Paul gives us a further clue …
Philippians 2:12-13 (NIV) “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.”
The critical thing here is that we have to allow God to work His sanctification in us, we have to submit to the purging power of Holy Spirit who can do what we cannot – from the inside out. But we do have to cooperate with Him. It doesn’t happen by magic. The Holy Spirit graciously shows us where we need purging and sanctification, this is conviction, which is not about condemnation, but about bringing us to holiness … so that we can know God intimately.
The apostle Paul speaks of his journey with God who has purged him deeply over the years. This is what he wrote from prison just a few weeks before he was executed …
Philippians 4:12 (NIV)
“… I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation …”
Now that sentence is loaded with meaning. The original Greek text should be rendered thus … “I have been initiated into and instructed in sacred mysteries,” and Paul is speaking of the sanctification God has worked in him as he has submitted his soul and body to God. He has been initiated by God into the sacred mysteries of God through sanctification … and though facing death, he is content. Nothing can assail his joy. He testifies to the sheer joy and power of God at work in him as one made holy.
Philippians 1:21 (NIV)
“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”
Through sanctification God initiates us deep into His holiness, and He instructs us that we may know Him and His mysteries. After all, one of the names of God is Jehovah M’Kiddish, which means – “I am the God who sanctifies you.” So, let Him …
Each day as we allow God, by His Spirit living in us, to purge us we are made holy, as He is holy. Each day we move one step closer to knowing Him and experiencing the riches of His mercy, grace, love and glory. Into these mysteries God waits to initiate us. The pursuit of holiness then, as someone once said, is its own reward.
John 17:15-17 (NIV)
[Jesus] “My prayer is not that You take them (the disciples) out of the world but that You protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth.”
And there’s another clue …
God wants us to know Him so much that He sent Jesus to make that possible. By Christ’s blood we are made righteous … now we submit to God to be made holy … that’s where the joy is …
Think and meditate on these things. Trust that God is knowable and wants to be found … by you.
Ps Milton