Much of the
problem that I see with the Christian church in this generation, is our myopic vision
of God. We say we believe in the Trinity, but we don’t act as if we do. We are introduced to Jesus Christ, the Son of
God, the Son of Man, and we sit gazing at His manhood. Whether or not we are distracted, we spend
little time wondering about the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the One Whom
Christ was so intent upon bringing us to.
The Holy Scriptures described the flesh of Jesus Christ as the “Veil” which hung in the temple between the people of God, and the Holy of Holies, and upon Jesus Christ’s crucifixion, this veil was torn in half, from top to bottom. This was an indisputable act of God and a visual testimony of what had just been accomplished. As the veil which hung between the people of God, and the Holy of Holies, we see this veil on the one side, mankind, and on the other side of this same veil “the Holy of Holies”. It is the type of fully man, fully divine image that is consistent with our understanding of who Jesus Christ was and is. One veil, two distinct sides….fully man, fully God.
It seems that
we then spend the rest of our days looking at the limitations of the manhood of
Christ, rather than the boundless eternity of the “Godhood” of Christ which lay
beyond the veil. The veil was torn, that we might enter in. The intention is that
we might now be clothed with the righteousness of God in Christ, and then know
the Father as intimately as Jesus Christ knows the Father. He is in the Father
and we are in Christ who is in the Father.
Christ is our means of knowing the Father, and the Holy Spirit
communicates this knowledge to our spirit.
Somewhere
along the way, people have forgotten about the “Father”. Back in the day of
Christ’s resurrection, the people understood the grandness of the Father. They
understood the Holiness of God, and they knew the stories of God’s divine
intervention in the lives of their ancestors.
They understood the “fear of the Lord” and lived their lives under the
banner of having been chosen by this great and Mighty albeit inapproachable
Holy God.
Who they didn’t know, was the Son of
God. They had wrong ideas of who the
Messiah was, and how He would enter into history. The Father gave faith to as many as He
called, to recognize and believe in His Son, and then many did indeed search
the Scriptures and believe in Jesus Christ.
In those early days, the Holy Spirit was neglected by those who came to
believe in Christ, but had never heard of the Holy Spirit Whom Jesus said He
would send to His followers upon His ascension.
Until they learned of Him, they did not and could not live by the power
of the Holy Spirit. They never sought the Baptism of the Holy spirit.
In this
generation and point on the timeline of history, we have come full circle. We are a people who by the grace of God, have
come to believe in the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and by the grace of God and by
means of the study of His Word, have come to some understanding of the Holy
Spirit (in varying degrees) but other than mentioning the Father in addressing
our prayers, we have not the “fear of the Lord” which is the “beginning of
wisdom”. We have not an appreciation of
His Majesty, Glory or Sovereignty. If we
did, we would not say much of what we say about God, nor have such a flippant
attitude regarding sin. We fail to fully
appreciate the Providence of God and His attention to the details of our
lives.
This is not
entirely our fault. We have learned to compartmentalize our faith in a society
that has brainwashed people that there is such a thing as “secular”. So we tread life with a secular mindset throughout
the day, where things happen seemingly haphazardly and with no rhyme nor
reason, while we only give lip service to the Sovereignty of God. We have had no idea how undermining this is
to faith. We just accept that fallacy and our experience is dampened because of
this error.
If there
were such a thing as “secular”, a so called “God-Free” zone, then we would have
no basis to trust God in this place. In
fact, God would not be God at all if one single molecule was rogue and
unmanageable. We don’t see the connection of one event to the other, so we
dismiss the events of the day and conclude with a prayer of thanksgiving that
our heads were kept above water. We
never consider that He may have sent the events our way, therefore, we fail to
learn from them. This is not the reality of this life on earth, this is the
ungodly version of it. This is living in
the enemy’s camp completely naked and ignorant.
We should thank God for His patience with us, as we trudge on in our “lack
of knowledge” by which so many are destroyed. We can thank God that He has us
in His hand, even though we seem to wander aimlessly in our ignorance or plunge
into activities of our own design, blissfully ignorant of what the Father is
doing. We have envisioned God as “out there somewhere”, when in actuality, in
Him we live and move and have our being.
We must start to pay attention and deprogram
our pattern of thinking to align with the Word of God. If God knows the number of the hairs on your
head, we have to start to understand that He knows and is in control of EVERYTHING.
I will at
some other time, address the bad things that happen in this life which seem to
reinforce the erroneous notion that there must be “secular God-free” zones.
That is a topic that will only distract from the point of this article, but is
fully explainable given the spiritual condition of this world system. Suffice it to say that all the while that the
Israelites were trudging through the desert those 40 years, being fed by manna,
being given drink from a rock, having the sea split in two in order to cross…there
was a world of the ungodly demon worshipers going on elsewhere where many “bad
things” happened. God was giving His attention to His people, and those who
joined themselves to His people in the worship of the God of all creation.
We, as the
blood bought people of God, who are joined to Christ and have the Holy Spirit
indwelling us, must gaze beyond the veil to the God side of Christ and the Father. If we fail to gaze from the “God” side of the
veil, we will not believe for the impossible.
We have allowed the limitations of our mind to define who God is. In
limiting God to our limited “concept” of Him, we have created an idol. Our minds cannot contain God, we “see through
a glass darkly”. I believe this is why God strongly warned against using carved
images and pictures of any animals, birds, sea creatures or man to assist in
our worship of Him. These things cannot
define God and only serve to exchange the truth of God for a lie. It is
offensive to God that we should gaze upon a thing of our own making, and
worship it. People may say that they are not “worshiping the thing, but the god
behind the thing”, but the Scriptures claim that the “god” of that image is a
demon…so it is little wonder that this is odious to God.
We cannot
know God apart from Christ, but Christ reveals Him to us as we abide in Him and
earnestly seek to know Him. We must know the God of the Bible, the “whole” counsel
of God. We must think upon the details
of God’s intervention on behalf of men to accomplish His purpose in history. We must think upon the goodness and severity
of God. We have the confidence of His love in Christ, but if we don’t
understand His Holiness, we will continue to make light of sin and hinder our
ability to ever know Him as He should be known. If we continue in sin, we have
reason to doubt the reality of our conversion and union with Christ. Jesus did
not have any good things to say about the “hypocrite”. If that charge is true
in our lives, we must confess it to God, repent of it, and walk in the light of
truth with integrity. He is faithful and just to forgive us…but God is not
mocked, so if we are not sincere, we are wasting our time and deceiving ourselves.
The Scriptures speak of the hypocrite being “cut in two and cast into outer
darkness” when face to face with God.
By His grace, we are saved through faith in
His Beloved Son, and in Him we are accepted.
He could have just as easily cast us off to hell with the rest of the
unpenitent and ungodly. So fear Him who has the power to cast both soul and body into hell.
But trust in Him who saved us from such a fate and continue in Him. See…the
goodness and severity of God.
Our view of
God is too small. God is greater than
our minds can imagine, and our minds cannot truly know Him. Sinful man can never know Him. He sent His
Word to lead us to Christ. He sent Christ to make atonement for our souls, cleanse us and make a way into the
Holy of holies and He sent the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us. He gave us faith to believe, hope to press
on, and love to communicate intimately with us. We must abide in Christ, and
look beyond the veil.
