What Does God Look Like?

Deuteronomy 4:15 You saw no form of any kind the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb
out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully,

     We often hear children ask, "What does God look like?" Even some adults ask this same question. It is a natural question asked from a very human perspective. We as human beings are very good at recognizing faces. It is one of the first things that infants learn. They recognize human faces. Then their caregivers face and voice. Then they begin to recognize other things.
     So if I am a human being, which I assure you I am, then recognizing God's face ought to be something I try to firmly plant in my brain. I wouldn't want to miss Him if I passed Him in WalMart!
     But one of the failures of so many people is that we try to boil God down to our size, something we can get our minds around. But God can't be boiled down. He is so far beyond anything we could ever comprehend that it is impossible for us to picture Him.
     And that is exactly what the Second Commandment is all about. Don't make an image of the LORD. So when Moses is giving his final words to the Israelites before they enter the Promised Land, he reinforces this commandment. He appeals to their firsthand knowledge. They had seen the fiery cloud when the LORD had spoken. But there was no discernible form to the person speaking.
     But even more importantly, all the other people groups around the Israelites had tried to boil down the LORD into representations of known objects. They made idols of animals & creatures in their attempts to capture the essence of the Creator. They carved images of the stars and other objects in the sky in hopes that they were capturing the Star Maker Himself.
     So Moses warns them not to try to reduce the LORD in any way.
     We can't reduce the LORD to an APP on our phone, a corner of our living space, an appointment on our calendar. We can't reduce Him. He owns it all. He is everywhere present. Nothing is hidden from Him. He even knows our hearts.

Challenge and Password

Psalm 24:3-10

          We live in a world of authentication. You enter your pin number when you withdraw cash from an ATM. You enter a username and password on your favorite online marketplace. When the website passes that information across the internet the package of information is validated and encrypted to ensure its authenticity. When meeting a long lost friend we ask, “Is that really you?” When soldiers communicate on radios they use codenames and passwords to ensure they are talking to the people they think they are talking to.

          If you want to join an exclusive club you must meet the qualifications. The application process, whatever it is, weeds out those who don’t measure up. Some clubs can’t be joined unless you know someone who knows someone. It takes a personal word from an insider to get you noticed and accepted. Some groups even have secret qualifications. It can be pretty hard to know if you can get in if you don’t know what the standards are.

          One type of worship song takes the form of a call and response. The leader begins with their line and then everyone else joins in with the response. It appears as though today’s psalm is just such a worship song. Each time the leader began with the question who, the congregation would get ready to give the appropriate response. We don’t know exactly who said which lines, but you can get a good idea.

          But what we do know is that the responses give us a glimpse into their understanding of the entrance requirements into the LORD’s presence. The first one involves knowing who owns everything. The answer is the LORD. We learn this from the first two verses. We also see that He gets the credit for victory in battle starting in verse seven.

          It is thought that this song would have been sung as people were traveling to Jerusalem for one of the required festivals each year. They would sing this as they walked, kind of like the songs soldiers sing as they march in formation. It would hold them together, unify them, help them understand the purpose of their journey. The younger members would become part of the group when they learned the words and sang along. They were no longer children; they were part of the worshiping community that was traveling together to worship the LORD.

          Who is qualified to go into God’s presence? Only those with clean hands and a pure heart, specifically those who have not been involved in idolatry. Now before you tell me you don’t have a carved statue around your house anywhere, idolatry involves putting anything but the LORD in the control booth of your life. If you are every trusting in your own genius, your own resources to get out of trouble, you trust an idol. If prayer isn’t your first response, idolatry could be part of your life.

          There is a blessing available to those who meet this simple qualification. We get to be part of what He is doing in the world. So as they traveled to the city, they would sing this song. It sounds as though it was sung when they got to the gates of the city, as a way to signal that they were insiders and not an enemy. Who is the King? The LORD! Open up the doors!

          Here in the West we don’t need any passwords to enter a worship service or Bible study and prayer group. But there are places today where authentication is needed, places where being a Jesus-follower gets you killed. Only those invited can come. Only those qualified get the password. And it takes knowing someone personally and getting their recommendation.

          Would you be allowed in?

The Twenty-Plus-Five’s

Psalm 25, 55, 85, 115, 145

Love changes things. As we think about the process of forgiveness Psalm 25:7 provides some insight. As the writer expresses his trust in the LORD (vv1-2) he also recognizes his own sinfulness (v7). He asks that the LORD would use His love as a filter when He remembers his past. All of us have things in our past, large or small, that we would not want the world to know about, that we would not want plastered on Facebook. We want a future employer, or spouse, to filter what we did in our youth, because we are different people now. Hopefully we have matured a bit! The writer wants to be taught (vv4-5) and recognizes that the LORD wants to teach (v14). He wants help with both the inner and the outer battle (vv16-19). He does not want shame to overtake him.

One of the greatest pains is when a friend betrays you. Psalm 55 records the thoughts of someone in this situation. A close friend is opposing him (vv12-14). I hear of best friends becoming business partners and then parting ways over some small matter. They lose not only the business, but their friendship as well. The turmoil expressed in this psalm, and the solution the writer seeks can speak to us today. We need to cast our cares on Him (v22), and when we do, He will sustain us. We still might lose the business and the friendship, but we will make it through.

The LORD’s work in our life is not a one-time event. We need His touch repeatedly in our lives. This is one of the messages of Psalm 85. The writer recounts past experiences before he asks for restoration again (v4). One important aspect of the LORD’s work is that righteousness is not optional (vv10-13). We can’t have restoration without right being and right living. The LORD will not bless unrighteousness. If we want the LORD’s presence and the blessings that accompany His presence, then our attitude and actions need to line up with His.

Psalm 115 gives us a good list of the things an idol is incapable of doing. To sum it up, they can do nothing. They have no power in and of themselves. The only power they have is the power we give them. For some of us our past has become an idol. We give it power to rule us now, yielding to its messages, cowering before the images and experiences. The antidote to this idolatry is found in verses 9-11. We are to trust in the LORD. This can be a very difficult task. We get wired by the past experiences in order to protect ourselves from harm. This wiring does not immediately get redone when we start of walk of faith. It takes trust and receipt of safety before the wires get rerouted. Trust the LORD.

One of the responsibilities that must be upheld is that of telling the next generation of the LORD’s work in our lives (Ps 145:4-7). Perhaps it is because we have allowed the culture to influence our statement of the Truth in a culture that labels this profession as “intolerant”. But we need to express the LORD’s gracious and compassionate nature (v8). Our culture does not need to hear condemnation of particular sins, but of the abounding grace and changing power of our Great God. They need to see the difference in our lives. If we are not different, the hypocrisy shouts louder than our bumper stickers. We need to live it so that our lives don’t block the Light of the Gospel!

The Seven’s

Psalm 7, 37, 67, 97, 127

Would you be willing to let your enemies be your judge, jury and executioner? The psalmist in Psalm 7 tells the LORD that if he has done evil, to let his enemies carry out judgment on him. He is so certain of his innocence that he is willing to lay it on the line before the LORD. He wants the LORD to stop his enemies in their tracks. I love the image of being pregnant with evil, conceiving trouble and giving birth to disillusionment. That really is the process of evil. It begins, grows and then comes to fruition.

Class warfare is nothing new. The labeling of our opponents as doing something wrong didn’t start with the 2008 presidential campaign. Psalm 37 shows that God’s people, as do most humans, look at the temporary gains of wickedness and question. We ask if serving the LORD is worth it. Sometimes wickedness has short term gains and righteousness doesn’t. But in the end, judgment comes and the righteous are vindicated. We must be patient and trust in the LORD’s provision. It may appear that evil pays off, but only for the moment. Righteousness pays eternal dividends.

Psalm 67 begins with a blessing pronounced on God’s people. The writer prays that God’s grace and blessing would be on us, that when we look at His face we would see a smile of pleasure. And he wants this so that God’s message of hope and salvation would be welcomed all over the world. This really is the reason God blesses us. He wants the blessing that He pours into our lives to be an enticement for the rest of the world to come and partake in His grace as well. He gives it to us to pass along to others, so those others might likewise pass it along after having come to a full knowledge of the Giver of the grace.

In contrast to the idols of the world, the LORD has no equal. It is like someone with a AAA battery flashlight compared to the brilliance of the sun. There is no comparison. Psalm 97:7 says that everyone who trusts in someone or something other than the LORD (an idol) are put to shame. Even the idols (little “g” gods) will worship the LORD! We have much to worship. The LORD’s character and being are so great that to do otherwise would be folly.

“Unless the LORD builds the house”, Psalm 127 begins. And yet how many of us build our lives apart from the LORD’s design. All the work and effort mean nothing if the LORD is not directing. One of those designs is for family. Even in the era of “birth control” children are a reward! If we don’t have children, who will?