At the beginning of creation, Moses records how the Lord set out to form the pinnacle of His creation, mankind. “Let Us make man in our image, according to Our likeness…” (Gen 1:26).
From the beginning, our relationship with God has been the most unique of all aspects of creation. We possess the “breath of life” (Gen 2:7).
Our fulfillment was a great concern to God, and thus He made, “a helper comparable to him” (Gen 2:18). As man lived and inhabited Eden, the greatest blessing was that of the direct fellowship with God, “in the cool of the day” (Gen 3:8). If you pause and think about it, our beginning was with the greatest benefit for our souls, because we had the presence of our God, daily.
Due to man being removed from the presence of God, we are dependent on the Lord revealing to us His will and His desires for our lives. We cannot truly know how to please God or how to respond to Him without being aware of who God is and what He, as deity is like. Furthermore, we will not know these things unless God chooses to reveal them to us. Paul gives us a concise commentary on this truth with I Corinthians 2:11,
“For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.”
God has also made Himself known to us by His relationships. We learn of His compassion and mercy when we look to God and His relationship with King David (Psalm 17:6). We learn of God’s deity when we see Him with Job (Job 38:4). Justice is clearly seen with God and Israel, during Israel’s days of departure and sin from God’s holiness (Isaiah 30:9). Much of what we know about our God, we learn through His dealings with those of the past, and in so doing we understand how the Lord deals with us in the present.
The assurance we have in knowing our God through His revelation of Himself to us, is that our Lord has not and will not change (Malachi 3:6). Our God is our creator, He is our source of compassion and mercy, He will be our God, and He will show us justice, and when He does, we will understand His grace. Peering into the word, we will peer into our Lord’s identity, and in doing so, we will understand more of His presence with us, see the depth of His promises, and know His power, still reserved for us, the church, of today.
- Bryan McAlister preaches for the Centerville Church of Christ, in Centerville, TN. He may be contacted through the congregation's website: http://www.centervillechurchofchrist.org
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