Introduction to God Being Known

When I first started dating Mo - we're now married and have two kids - I was in Boston doing campus ministry at Harvard and Boston College Law School. But she lived in Washington, D.C.

This was back in the era before FaceTime had been invented. As the saying goes, absence makes the heart grow fonder. Here's the point: When someone you treasure is far away, you want them to be near.

So far, we've talked a great deal about how God is far away, transcendent, and even incomprehensible. And in particular, last week we meditated on the fearsome and awesome truth that God is holy. It's a challenge to consider that in God's infinite greatness, he is absolute moral perfection, at an absolute moral distance from us.

I've brought these important truths up because we've often heard a domesticated, shallow, boring version of who God is. For whatever reason, the church has often neglected to not only teach, but to make us feel the reality of God's incomprehensible greatness.

But if in response to this neglect, we start to overemphasize these truths, we will feel hopeless and overwhelmed.

So we also need to remember that God is immanent: God is near. God is altogether lovely. He not only created us but he is the God with us. And in love, God has not only revealed himself to us, but we are united to God.

Now, is this a contradiction? In some ways, God is incomprehensible… but in other ways, he is known? He is both far away and close to us?

We have to keep in mind that we tend to see God in fragmented ways. But God is not fragmented - he is one, unified, simple God.

Within the Trinity, God fully understands himself. It is only from our perspective that there is a partial knowledge of God. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13, "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known."

Our Father, Who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name Thy kingdom come Thy will be done On earth as it is in heaven Give us this day our daily bread And forgive us our trespasses As we forgive those who trespass against us Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory Forever and ever, Amen

Practice the presence of God this week by pausing throughout each day to acknowledge His nearness.