I can’t remember the exact subject the speaker was addressing at the Pastor’s Conference I attended in
But I digress; I have now been prompted by the above statement to simply write about what’s important. What is important to our faith? What is important in regards to what we hold as convictions, what it is we need to not waiver from, in order that what we preach, teach, and live what God has intended and commanded us to preach, teach, and live.
So the most important thing for us as Believers who profess Christ is… God.
A.W. Tozer says in his book, The Knowledge of The Holy, (a must read for anyone who professes Christ);
“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”
He adds; “Worship is pure (unpolluted, wholesome) or base (dishonourable, improper, corrupt, vile) as the worshipper entertains high or low thoughts of God.”
With that in mind; who is God, what comes into your mind when you think of Him?
While it is impossible to definitively answer that question, the Bible does answer it as far, and as much, as God has intended to answer it. Books like Tozer’s The Knowledge of The Holy can help us in biblically understanding and answering that question. Our Church’s Statement of Faith answers that question, again, as far and as much as we can, biblically.
I will be honest and say that a book like The Shack by William P. Young does not answer that question biblically. While it is touted as fiction, which it is, thousands of people are coming away from it saying such things as this reviewer does; “The Shack is a one of a kind invitation to journey to the very heart of God. Through my tears and cheers, I have been indeed transformed by the tender mercy with which William Paul Young opened the veil that too often separated me from God and from myself. With every page, the complicated do's and don't that distort a relationship into a religion were washed away as I understood Father, Son and Holy Spirit for the first time in my life.” - Fiction giving us truth that transforms? ( I understood Father, Son and Holy Spirit…)
In his book, Tozer quotes Nicholas of Cusa, philosopher and theologian whose writings influenced the development of Renaissance mathematics and science in the early 1400s:
“If anyone should set forth any concept by which You can be conceived, I know that that concept is not a concept of You, for every concept is ended in the wall of
Contrast; "You humans are so lost and damaged that to you it is almost incomprehensible that relationship could exist apart from hierarchy. So you think that God must relate inside a hierarchy like you do. But we do not” (p.124 The Shack, William P. Young).
Scripture says otherwise and it says so clearly. “But I want you to
understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God” (1 Corinthians 11:3).
God cannot and must not be imagined into a nicely packaged image. Further, the Bible is clear that God cannot and must not be portrayed in any image. It is impossible to make the Creator a part of His creation and the Bible clearly and repeatedly forbids us from even attempting to do this. “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and Truth,” says Jesus in
The second of the Ten Commandments forbids attempting to make any visual portrayal of God. To worship such an image, to acknowledge it as God or even to pretend it is God is to commit the sin of idolatry. It is to worship a creation rather than the Creator.
I end with Tozer once again; “A god begotten in the shadows of a fallen human heart will quite naturally be no true likeness of the true God.”
How shall we know Him? The Bible answers; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Oh how I want to know Him, how about you?