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.

Insider Trading

Mark 4:9-13

      One of the facts of life that sometimes feels uncomfortable these days is that we are not all equal. We don’t all have the same physical, mental or emotional strength. We don’t all grow up in homes with the same supportive, connected adults. Our neighborhoods are not all equally safe. We don’t all have access to the same food quality. We don’t have identical medical coverage. We don’t all have the same opportunity to be exposed to great, music, art and literature. Our educations are not identical. We aren’t all born with the same genetic predispositions to illnesses. We are not equal, and there is very little we can do about much of this.

      Even with universal healthcare, some can afford to pay extra for the best care. And they do. Some pay for private schools, even when their tax dollars pay for the local public school. Some can afford the time and money to eat home prepared meals. Some must eat other options. Some people are brilliant at math and some at social connections. Some excel at book learning and testing while others are more hands on learners. We are not equal.

      This inequality gets played out in every aspect of life. It is all pervasive and goes back in history to the time when there was one naked man and one naked woman and no shame was present. Once they chose rebellion rather than obedience, differences are amplified.

      Jesus has told everyone (verse 3) to listen carefully. Everyone has the responsibility to do this. We can’t have casual relationship with the Truth. We are responsible to pay attention to what is being said. Our ears must be willing to hear. Our hearts must be ready to submit our beliefs to the Ultimate Authority. We are not omniscient. We don’t have full knowledge. Humility requires us to acknowledge this. Our perspective is limited. One final note: we are not the Final Authority!

      The disciples take the opportunity when Jesus is alone with them, away from the crowds, to get a better understanding of this parable and parables in general. Only those who were closest received this insider explanation. The crowds did not. Not everything is equal.

      Jesus quotes Isaiah the prophet in his response. In Isaiah’s day Israel had been given many chances to listen to the Truth and respond in obedient submission to the LORD’s will. The vast majority of them had rebelled, hardened their hearts to the Truth, and continued to reject God’s continued calls to repentance and reconciliation.

      We see this same resistance to the Truth in Jesus’ day. The religious leaders had consistently rejected the Truth in favor of their lies. This rejection of Jesus hardened their hearts.

      There is hardening of the heart happening today in our world, perhaps even in our lives. The only way to combat it is to see, to hear and to turn. We must give up our “all-knowing” position. If we find ourselves constantly pointing our verbal fingers at other people’s beliefs, perhaps it is time to examine our own. Our attitude reflects the attitude of our heart, either softened or hardened. Bitterness is a sure sign of hardening of the heart, as is an angry voice, written or spoken, toward those who disagree with us.

How much do you know?

Scriptures

I read today about the apparent suicide of Aaron Swartz. I had never heard of him before reading the article. He was apparently an important computer hacker in the hacker world. He advocated openness on the internet, a code word for, among other things, the ability to steal intellectual property freely. He suffered with depression for years. He apparently hung himself. I learned something.

But just how important is that information? Will it change my life and cause me to live more in a way that positively affects my eternity? I doubt it.

When Jesus encountered people they often said that He knew much more than would be apparent to the eye. John records many of these statements (Jn 16:30, 21:17, 2:24-25, 4:29). But this just emphasizes how little they knew in comparison to how much Jesus knew.

The big question is “How much does Jesus know?” These other people say that He knows everything, but does He? In Luke 6:8 & 11:17 it is recorded that Jesus knew what people were thinking. Maybe Jesus was just a fantastic observer and really good guesser! I know that there have been a few times when I have been able to accurately guess what people were thinking and feeling. Is this all Jesus was doing?

Things change when Jesus begins talking about His upcoming death and resurrection. You might say that we have some control over the timing of our death, or at least Jesus did. He could make the religious leaders so mad with His claims that they would kill Him on the spot. They had started to kill Him previously, as we have examined. But it is one thing to predict the timing and manner of your death, but something entirely different to know that you will rise from the dead three days later AND THEN DO IT! Lots of people have claimed lots of things about coming back to life, but only Jesus predicted it and accomplished it. Mt 16:21, Jn 12:33

One final area I want to examine, one of great importance. Jesus says that He knows “all things” Mt 11:27. One of the things we certainly can’t know apart from Him is God the Father. Jesus says that He has a personal knowledge of the Father, and that the Father has a personal knowledge of Him. Jesus can share that personal knowledge with us, if He chooses.

What I find interesting is that this knowledge is not a wiki fact, but a personal encounter. I could give you access to all my personal information, but you still would not know me. You would only know about me. Jesus wants us to know Him, not just know about Him. Jesus has the ability to reveal the Father to us, not just reveal facts about the Father. Knowing about Aaron Swartz is not the same as knowing Aaron Swartz. Know about God is not the same as knowing God. Jesus can make that personal knowledge available to us.