How many here would testify that they want to know God more?
Is there an accurate way of doing so without risking creating an image of God to our own liking that is not consistent with who He truly is?
I mean if we reject the notion of going to a source of authoritative testimony concerning who He is and what He is like we might construct our own idea of God and what He is like and be found serving a God we created for ourselves that is not consistent with His own testimony about Himself.
Have you ever had someone speak to you about another person as though they knew about them but yet had never met them personally and were only speaking from what they had heard through others?
Have you ever thought you knew someone only to be surprised by some event that revealed something entirely different than what you thought you knew about them?
There is the person they told us they were but then there was the person their actions revealed they were and the two were not the same. Ordinarily you cannot go by a person’s own testimony of one’s self since human beings tend to skew the facts to help themselves look better than they truly are. Self-testimony for this reason is considered highly unreliable at best.
To this reality the Bible says,
Proverbs 27:2 Let another man praise you, and not your own mouth; A stranger, and not your own lips.
This is very wise counsel as it pertains to human beings. But the Scripture says something different about the testimony of God.
Numbers 23:19 "God is not a man that He should lie, Nor a son of man that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?
How many would like to know God accurately according to what He says about Himself?
Well to achieve that we must allow the Scripture to reveal to us the character and nature of God and not insist He be a certain way for us to like Him or want to call Him God.
We begin with the idea that there is only one absolutely perfect person in all of eternity. God alone holds that title of being absolutely perfect in every way imaginable.
This automatically places Him high above all things created!
This puts God in such an exalted position that when He is known to be present all attention should be focused upon Him alone.
Tim Atchley
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About The Author
- Tim Atchley
- Knoxville, Tennessee, United States
- I currently serve as Senior Pastor of Harvest Church in Knoxville, Tn. I was sent out from Trinity Chapel of Knoxville in 1993 accompanied by my wife Sheila our four children Sarah, Hannah, Josiah & Isaac and a handful of bold, brave and committed believers determined to plant our first church. Pioneering is hard work but well worth the journey. That is why we desire to make disciples of Christ who will, like us, also embrace the call to plant churches.
