KINGDOM TRUTH #4: IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT GOD IS LIKE, LOOK AT JESUS.
It had been a long, long time to be misunderstood. God yearned for His people to know Him, but early on they had chosen to walk away. They broke their connection with Him which left them fatally sick and spiritually blind.
In rare honest moments, when something in them cried out for home, their hearts must have asked: Who are You, God? But they had lost their ability to see.
God wouldn’t give up. He began the long process of reintroducing Himself. Through Passover He painted a picture of His heart—“I am the God who rescues.” The powerful display at Mount Sinai declared: “I am the God of love and justice.” The Tabernacle pointed to His desire for intimacy, proclaiming: “I am the God of closeness.”
God was showing the people who He was, but blind hearts can’t see even clearly-presented truth. God must have heard people talking about Him over the years—dialogs at synagogues and around dinner tables. How often He must have wanted to bust through to correct misunderstandings. To show Himself for who He really is. Who are You, God?
It had been a long, long time to be misunderstood. God yearned for His people to know Him, but early on they had chosen to walk away. They broke their connection with Him which left them fatally sick and spiritually blind.
And then, when the time had fully come, the God who wants closeness came closer. God stepped off His throne in Heaven and stepped into a single cell in the womb of a woman. For nine months, Jesus grew. Then He was born. Thirty years passed while He walked among the people, experiencing life with them, hearing their misconceptions about Him with His own human ears, but not letting anyone know who He was. Patient, patient, patient.
And then, at age 30, the Head of the Angel Armies, the Possessor of All Authority, the King of Heaven and Earth, made His presence known. The invisible God had stepped into the visible—into something His blind people would be able to see.
In Jesus, God’s heart was on full display. He was endlessly compassionate—the purest, most perfect Being turned no one away. The hemorrhaging woman reached out to touch Him. The blind man called out to Him for healing. The 10 lepers, considered untouchable, ran up to Him. Children crawled in His lap. The cast-aside, the overlooked, the contagiously sick, the overwhelmingly sinful, the arrogantly righteous, the hopelessly broken—they all came to Him. And Jesus, God Himself, lovingly welcomed them all.
People made fun of Him. People didn’t understand Him. People hated Him. People stood in awe of Him. But not one single person was afraid to come to Him, the One to whom angels bow. Not a single person. The misguided woman at the well accepted His living water. The righteous Nicodemus sought Jesus out despite the social ridicule he faced. The “greatest” of sinners—prostitutes, thieves, criminals given the death sentence—came to Jesus freely. God is welcoming, inviting, loving . . . good.
And then, the invisible God stepped into the visible—into something His blind people would be able to see—in the Person of Jesus, who was born into this world, walked among us without sin, and died for us.
For centuries, the hearts of humanity had wondered, Who are You, God?
And in Jesus, God answered. “Here I am.” The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being (Hebrews 1:3).
Jesus unveils the reality of the universe: The one, true God is relentlessly, infinitely, lavishly good. He doesn’t want us to know about Him, He wants us to know Him. And He will stop at nothing to make that happen. Right now, from the throne of Heaven, God pours out a love and a desire for closeness so intense it’s humbling.
If you encountered Jesus when He walked on the earth—if you pushed past the crowd, making eye contact with Him—you would’ve found this: an inviting smile and His welcoming, overwhelming love. And that same heart sits on Heaven’s throne today.
If your heart ever echoes Who are You, God? look to Jesus for the answer: “Here I am.”
And then come to Him. He has been waiting for you.
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©2023, Walk Thru the Bible
As we observe Holy Week and celebrate our Risen Savior, I wanted to let you know that our Walk Thru the Bible President, Phil Tuttle, will be preaching the Good Friday Service (Friday, April 18) as well as the Easter Sunrise Service at the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem this Sunday.
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