How do we see God?

Leon ♦ March 26, 2013 ♦ Leave a comment

How should we view God? Does it make any difference how we see or perceive him? I certainly think it does. If we think we know who God is, yet do not understand his true character, then we may find we are worshiping a false god, and not our true Savior.

John4:²⁴ God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. This verse states we must worship God in spirit and in truth. How can we do this? First we must worship him in spirit.  John 6: ⁶³ It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. Jesus said the words he spoke are spirit. The flesh profits nothing. We think with our minds, and our minds are flesh. We may think we know God and his character, but thinking is fleshy. God’s word is spirit, and through it we come to know him, and his character.  How do we worship God in truth? Can we know truth from lies or fables? Jesus had this to say to his disciples, John 17: ⁶ They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.¹⁷ Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. So from these two verses we see God’s word is spirit and truth. From the word of God we can come to know God, and worship him in spirit and truth.

What does God reveal to us about himself in his word? If we have accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we are children of God. God is no more angry with us, then he is with Jesus.  Exodus 34: ⁶ And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.  Make no mistake, God is angry with and hates sin. But we are cleansed from all our sin’s. When God looks at us, he sees the righteousness of Jesus in us.  We do not have to work to earn his love. God does not love us based on anything we do.  Romans 5:⁸ But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  God loved us before we knew him, before we were his children, how much more after we have become his offspring.

John 3:¹⁶ For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.¹⁷ For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.  If God’s love toward us were based upon anything we have done or not done, then why send his son to die for us?  If we could please God by our own actions and righteousness, then God could create a family from the good people that have lived throughout history.  The problem with this is, no one would be seen as deserving of God’s love.

Romans 3:²³ For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;²⁴ Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

We are justified by grace through the work of Jesus, and not by our own actions.  God loves us, in the same way he loves Jesus, and Jesus loves us the same way he loves our Father. Knowing God’s love for us, and how much he wants all mankind to come to him, through his son Jesus, is to begin to know God.  When we know God’s love for us, we can more accurately begin to share it, and show it to others. And we will begin to worship God in Spirit and in Truth.