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How to Avoid Extremes in the Pursuit of Holiness

How the gospel affects the pursuit of holiness

We have been looking for several weeks at the necessity of holiness for anyone who wants to know God. However, it is also important to realize that people who pursue holiness can take a serious wrong turn. That is, they may try to rely on themselves instead of Jesus Christ for their holiness.

If we do this, we set ourselves up for certain defeat and utter despair, or for legalism, self-righteousness, and hypocrisy. We become either a failure or a fake.

We must distinguish between status and conduct

The reason for this is simple. No one can be perfectly holy in conduct.

But the hopeful truth is, we can be perfectly holy in status. God regards certain people as perfectly holy. That is, their status in God’s sight is that they are absolutely holy. The people who have this enviable status are those who believe in Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 1:30 says, “It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption” (NIV). This verse says Jesus is our holiness. His holiness is our holiness, and his holiness is perfect.

So God does not give us holy status without any basis or reason. Our holiness is not imaginary. Our perfect holiness is the real holiness of Jesus that is ours because we are in Jesus by faith.

Your conduct still matters

The fact that we can have holy status with God even though we do not always have holy conduct can lead some people to make another mistake. They think their holy status in Christ means conduct doesn’t matter, that God doesn’t notice conduct as long as we believe in Jesus.

That too is wrong. God deals with us based on both status and conduct. If we believe in Jesus, we have holy status, and therefore God accepts us, treats us as a son or daughter, and treats us with favor and kindness. But he is not blind to our unholy conduct. He works to cleanse us of these behaviors. Jesus says, “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline” (Revelation 3:19).

God resembles a father who loves and accepts his child, but in love also corrects his child. Hebrews 12:6 says, “The Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” Hebrews 12:10 says our fathers “disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.”

So God treats us both “as if” and “as is.” Because of our faith in Jesus Christ he treats us as if we were perfectly holy by promising us salvation, eternal life, sonship, and so on even though we are not perfectly holy. And he treats us as is by addressing how we actually conduct ourselves and warning us that we reap what we sow and that our evil conduct grieves him.

Our ways versus God’s ways

Our ways: We try to be holy through our own efforts apart from Jesus Christ, imagining that holy conduct will give us holy status. We may try so hard to be holy in conduct that we despair of having holy status. Or we think the holy status we have through faith in Jesus Christ makes holy conduct unnecessary.

God’s ways: Our holiness comes through Jesus Christ alone. His perfect holiness gives us the status of perfect holiness before God. And Christ’s power and words give us the ability to grow in holy conduct. Thus for both a holy status and holy conduct, Jesus Christ is everything to us. He is our holiness. He makes us holy. We must put all our faith in him. To him be all the glory for our holiness. And thus because of him the subject of holiness is not daunting, negative, and intimidating for us, but rather it is another reason to rejoice in Christ and draw near to him. We can delight in holiness.

In order to think about our holiness correctly, we need to distinguish between holy status and holy conduct, and rely completely on Jesus Christ for both.

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Learning to Love Holiness

You cannot fully love God if you do not learn truly to love holiness.

learn to be holy

Those who truly want to know God discover that learning to love holiness is all important, because God is holy. Holiness defines him. Everything about God is pure, clean, pursuing good and opposed to evil.

Learning to love holiness depends on two actions. If you focus on only one, you will fail. Do both, and each contributes to the other in mutual strengthening. Like someone getting dressed for a big event, you must both put off dirty clothes and put on clean clothes.

Ephesians 4:22–24 says: “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”

So becoming holy always requires both positive and negative, putting on and putting off, what to do and what not to do.

Putting off

To grow in holiness we need to stop doing things that pollute and corrupt our souls.

If we are honest with ourselves, we know what those things are. But because we want to do them, we often deceive ourselves so that we can go on doing them. The Scripture above talks about “deceitful desires.” If we like going to worldly parties, we tell ourselves that Jesus went to parties. If we like watching worldly shows and movies or listening to worldly music, we tell ourselves that what we watch and hear does not affect what we do. If we love money and possessions, we tell ourselves we need what we are greedily pursuing.

But our growth in holiness will go nowhere as long as we continue in such things. We must put off what defiles our mind, spirit, and body. We must ask God to help us be completely honest as we consider our conduct. And we must then ask ourselves if there is anything in our lives that is not holy, anything that influences us to be unholy and worldly rather than pure and godly. Once you settle in your mind to be completely honest and to renounce whatever God shows you is unholy, your conscience will be a reliable guide.

Putting on

But putting off worldly things is not enough. Our soul abhors a vacuum. We need to replace bad desires with good desires, bad “food” with good “food.”

To grow in holiness we need to do the things that will increase our love for holiness, God, and the things of God. The things of God are an acquired taste that increases when we feed that appetite. When we learn to love them, we will find that they are far more satisfying than our former worldly pleasures.

So holiness comes from reading and meditating on the Word of God, from worship and prayer, from full involvement in church life and fellowship with true believers, from serving and helping others.

Dabbling in relating to God and in the things of God—reading the Bible now and then, praying here and there, going to church once or twice a month—does not satisfy and does not lead to growth in holiness. That only leads to guilt and a feeling of being torn between God and the world.

So we must go all in. When we devote ourselves to the godly life, and to loving Jesus Christ, and relying completely on his gospel for acceptance with God, we will learn to love holiness. And we will come to know God and his ways better and better.

Our ways versus God’s ways

Our ways: Dress in both dirty and clean clothes.

God’s ways: Dress only in clean clothes.

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Pure Pleasure

Holiness is completely misunderstood.

holiness is exciting

In my last post I made the point that one of the greatest gulfs between our ways and God’s ways is in how we feel about holiness. God is perfectly holy and loves holiness, but apart from Christ we are perfectly unholy. Even if we are in Christ, though we are holy in God’s sight we still often are drawn more to what is worldly, profane, and carnal than what is holy.

In other words, God usually has to drag us into holiness. The Scripture “Be holy because I am holy,” sounds more like a threat than an invitation.

For example, given the choice between watching an episode of Saturday Night Live or spending an hour in prayer and worship, many Christians would choose the former. They might discipline themselves to pray instead of watch profane programming, but they would prefer the comedy. Again, given the choice between watching a three-hour football game or hearing three, excellent, one-hour Bible teachings on how to live a holy life, I suspect few American Christians would enthusiastically choose the latter. Why is that?

How to get an appetite for what is truly good and pleasurable

I say all this not to heap guilt on us but rather to bring the problem starkly into the light. We are very different from God on this. We have a problem, and it is not a small problem. It is not just a matter of whether we can clean up our act well enough to be saved. Rather, it is a matter of knowing God.

True Christians will increasingly want to know God and his ways, and as that desire increases we come face to face with the matter of how we learn to love holiness as God does. How we learn to genuinely desire holiness and dislike worldliness. To have new appetites and desires. How we become like the person who learns to truly love eating natural food and has no desire to consume store-bought, packaged foods loaded with artificial ingredients.

The deadening effect of an unholy mindset

You have gotten this far in the article, so there is hope for you! Some checked out at the first mention of the word holiness. You are still reading because you are no longer walking fully in the steps of Esau, who is the prototype of the person who has absolutely no interest in the things of God, whose life revolves exclusively around the things of this world. Therefore Esau is profane, godless, unholy, irreverent, utterly worldly.

Esau comes up in one of the important sections of the New Testament talking about holiness. Hebrews 12:14–16 says, “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no ‘root of bitterness’ springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal.”

Note the words “unholy like Esau.” Other translations say “godless like Esau.” His defining act was to sell his most valuable asset, his invisible rights as the firstborn son, to his brother. This story is so important to our subject, let’s read it:

When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling in tents.  Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.  Once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was exhausted.  And Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted!” (Therefore his name was called Edom.)  Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright now.”  Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?”  Jacob said, “Swear to me now.” So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob.  Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright. (Genesis 25:27–34)

Note that Esau didn’t seem to do anything terrible here. He didn’t kill anyone, commit sexual immorality, steal anything, bow down to a statue. Hunting animals is not wrong. Esau was simply hungry, ravenously hungry. Nothing wrong with that. But he was also simply a fool, which means he made a choice against his best interest. He did not recognize the invisible things that are most valuable in life. The rest of his life confirmed this, for he showed zero interest in knowing God.

In other words, he was God-less. His god was the world, and thus the world became a profane thing to him. Everything becomes profane to the godless person. And a profane life is an increasingly deadening existence.

Holiness understood

Holiness begins with faith in Christ, and then it increasingly becomes part of our mind, desires, appetites, and actions as we see everything in life in its relationship to God. Our holiness grows as we value things as God values them. As we worship and give thanks to God for every good thing in this world. As we approve the conduct that God approves and humbly abominate the conduct that God abominates. And as we enjoy doing what Jesus would do.

Holiness is God-centered (rather than rule-centered). Holiness is love. It is pure in motive, unselfish, and humble. Holiness is without guile or deception, but fearlessly holds to the truth. Holiness is beautiful beyond words, good beyond description, desirable above every worldly pleasure. It is true, positive, clean, and lasting. Holiness is satisfying, fulfilling, and pleasing. It is energizing and zealous, burning like a fire. At the same time, it is peaceful, but not bored or apathetic. Holiness loves God and his glory above all.

Holiness is clean, pure pleasure. It is a pleasure far surpassing impure pleasure.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord! In his great love, he shares that with you through Christ.

Our way versus God’s way

Our way: Be worldly because it’s more fun. Worldliness is the good life.

God’s way: Be holy for I am holy. Holiness is the good life.

 

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How to Have a Healthy Soul

You can be pure in an evil-smudged world.

be pure

Today we look at one of God’s ways that is most not our way, but it is perfectly good and desirable once we come to our senses.

Recall again that the theme Scripture of this current series is Isaiah 55:8–9: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

What that tells us is that we cannot trust our intuitions when it comes to God and his ways. Nor can we trust what popular opinion and media culture say about God and his ways. We can only trust what God has revealed to us about himself and his ways.

What Jesus says

I believe that God has revealed the truth through Jesus and the Bible. And here is what Jesus teaches about God’s countercultural, counterintuitive ways: “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” (Matthew 7:13–14)

What American culture says

Turn on the television and watch for a few hours, or buy some magazines at the grocery store checkout lane and read, or check out the trailers of the top ten movies, and then answer this question: In general, is American culture and the people who drink deeply of it walking on the easy path through the wide gate, or walking on the hard path through the narrow gate?

If we were to shut ourselves off from our culture for one month and devote ourselves to reading the Bible over and over again, we would come to one conclusion: the way of life that American culture generally approves of is not God’s way.

Your big decision

This brings us to a fork in the road. Will we choose to walk in God’s way even though Jesus says it is hard and it is the way chosen by few? Or will we choose to go with the easy flow of the majority even though it is a way God rejects?

Big decision. Because the way of our world appeals to our appetites and desires, and it is smiled upon by people around us. It feels good. It is truly the easy way.

But there is one big problem. God does not approve.

And there is another big problem. In the end the way of the world leads to pain and loss. Its pleasures are temporary.

Choose the way that’s good for you!

All pleasures that God forbids resemble what meth does to an addict.

The Bible says, “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:7–9)

This verse presents a contrast. The ways of the flesh lead to corruption, but the ways of the Holy Spirit lead to eternal life.

God’s ways may not at first feel like the way we want to go—just as a person accustomed to eating a high-sugar, high-salt, processed-food diet recoils from eating healthful, natural food—but eventually we find that God’s pure ways bring true, lasting life. They bring peace, joy, and love. His ways bring hope, righteousness, and strength. They bring health and true happiness to soul and body.

God’s ways versus our ways

God’s ways: “You shall be holy for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16).

Our ways: You only get one life, so enjoy yourself while you can. There is no such thing as evil. Make your own rules. The dark side is entertaining. Purity is for prudes. If it feels good, do it. Explore. Decide for yourself. No one tells me what to do. Don’t judge me. Express yourself. I do it my way. Have fun. Get it on.

Based on this stark contrast, I leave you with wisdom from the apostle Peter: “Save yourselves from this crooked generation,” (Acts 2:40).

Spiritual purity is not the world’s way, but it is most definitely God’s way. If you want to know him truly, it must also become your way. Be pure!

 

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Why Jesus Always Takes Center Stage

Growing as a Christian

Knowing God and growing as a Christian always means delighting in Jesus above any created thing.

Why Jesus never becomes secondary

The apostle Paul had an impressive resume and pedigree. He talks about it in Philippians 3:4–6. But he does so only to say how little these things now mean to him. Something far better has taken over Paul’s life. He writes:

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:7–11)

In your pursuit of knowing God, Jesus Christ is not only essential to beginning your knowledge of God, he is supremely important for your ongoing growth in that knowledge. We don’t start with Jesus and then move on past him to other things.

In the verses above, Paul speaks of “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” Paul says knowing Jesus is so valuable that he is worth surrendering any other valuable thing in life for. Knowing Jesus is better than anything. And that is so because when we know Jesus we know the Father.

Here is the contrast between our way and God’s way:

Our way: Jesus becomes one of many things we value, but not the chief thing. Jesus is wonderful, but not everything to us. Jesus is important, but not worth sacrificing for. Our life-goals still take center stage, while Jesus is a supporting actor. We acknowledge Jesus as Lord, but our thoughts, time, money, goals, and desires center on other things.

God’s way: In the heart of every believer, Jesus becomes far more valuable than any created thing.

The change in heart that God requires for us to walk in his way is far more important for knowing God and his ways than any theological facts we can know about God. We can read 100 books about God and his ways, but if Jesus does not become our surpassing delight, then we will not know God as well as the illiterate one who loves Jesus more than any created thing.

Knowing God truly is more a matter of the heart than the mind, and therefore it is not about accumulating more knowledge about the Bible. It is about reordering our hearts around Jesus Christ. (This is not anti-mind, because we can’t do heart without mind.)

It is the Father’s will that we know him through Jesus, through loving Jesus supremely.

What supreme devotion looks like

This means that meditating worshipfully on the words and deeds of Jesus in the four Gospels is a crucial part of knowing God and his ways.

It means that means that meditating worshipfully on how the New Testament epistles explain, interpret, and apply the life of Jesus to us is crucial to knowing God and his ways.

This means it is crucial that we monitor the desires and affections of our hearts to be sure no created rivals arise to challenge our central focus on Jesus.

It means we monitor our ways to see that we love people as Jesus did.

You cannot exhaust the riches of Jesus Christ. You cannot know Jesus more without knowing God and his ways better. Jesus teaches us how to know and love the Father, and to rely completely on the Holy Spirit in all things.

Pause in prayer right now and center your life on Jesus Christ.

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The Limits of Tolerance and the Only Way to God

way to God

As intolerant as it sounds, God the Father still loves his Son Jesus and has chosen him to be the only way to God.

In the last post, we saw why God requires that we rely completely on Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sins. We cannot overstate the centrality of Jesus for those who want to know God and his ways, and the need to believe correctly about who he is and what he has done.

If you get this wrong, every other religious thing you do or believe leads nowhere. The Bible says, “This is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:11–12).

The only way to God and the limits of tolerance

Those are jarring words in our culture. In the spirit of Western culture, the non-negotiable values are tolerance, freedom, and independence. People want to do and believe what they want. They want to follow the faith that fits them.

When it comes to treating other people with respect and kindness, and the need for civil freedom to believe whatever religion people want, religious tolerance is very good. People must be free to follow their conscience.

But that is not the same as saying all religions are true. I could start a religion that believes my toothbrush is God, but it’s not true.

Our society should tolerate any religion that does not advocate crime, but not all religions will bring you acceptance with the God who is really there.

In fact, only one faith can do that. Only one faith is based on God’s actions to save us rather than our actions to try to save ourselves, which no one is good enough to pull off. Only one faith is not based in a fallible religious teacher, but rather in a divine Savior who is God’s unique Son.

According to the Bible, God’s eternal Son became a man, lived not just a good life, but rather the perfect life that only God could do, and obeyed all God’s commandments. And then as God had planned, his Son was arrested, tortured, and crucified not for any wrongs of his own, but rather as a substitute for sinful, fallen humans. At the cross, God’s Son Jesus received the just wrath of God that we deserved. Then on the third day God raised his Son from the grave to vindicate him and his words. (See the Gospel of Mark in the Bible.)

And because Jesus took our punishment, God will give eternal life to anyone who will repent of going his or her own way and believe in Jesus.

A singular Savior

Consider how Jesus differs from other religious leaders.

No other religious teacher has taken the punishment we deserved and atoned for our sins.

No other credible religious teacher claimed to be God’s unique, divine, uncreated, eternal Son.

There is no other credible religious teacher or leader who claimed to be the mediator, the go-between, the High Priest who is accepted by God and therefore can make us acceptable to God.

No other credible religious leader was supernaturally and permanently raised from the dead and promises to raise his followers permanently from the dead.

No other credible religious leader has claimed to be God.

There is no other religious leader who has received all authority from God in heaven and on earth and is now seated at God’s right hand. These are the claims of the Bible.

For all these reasons and more, Jesus was completely serious when he said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

A singular way

This means there are not many ways to God. All religions do not lead to God. Not if you believe the Bible.

In fact, any religion that ignores Jesus or downgrades him to just one of many good moral teachers is a religion that leads away—away!—from God. Through non-Christian religions people lose any hope of being accepted by God.

Several other major religions believe Jesus is good—but not necessary. They believe he is a prophet—but not God’s unique Son and not the only Savior of the world. In other words, they deny that he is The Christ, The Messiah, The Lord.

The Bible says, “Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also” (1 John 2:22–23).

Make no mistake: according to the Bible it’s Jesus or nothing. The Bible says, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

Do you want to know God and his ways? There is no other foundation than Jesus. He is the cornerstone. The door. The good shepherd. The Christ. The Messiah. The King of kings. The Lord of lords. The bread of life. The living water. The resurrection. The teacher. The unique Son uniquely loved by the Father.

For all these reasons and more, at Jesus’s baptism, the voice of God the Father came from heaven: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). And when Jesus was transfigured in light atop a mountain, “a voice from the cloud said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him’” (Matthew 17:5).

God means it. Listen to Jesus.

Our way and God’s way

God’s way: He brings people to himself only through Jesus Christ.

Our way: We want to come to God through the way and religion we choose. We want to design our own faith or follow the religion we prefer.

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The All-importance of Jesus

God forgive me

Have you ever wondered, Will God forgive me?

To have acceptance with God, we must always depend not on trying to be good enough for God, but rather on Jesus Christ and his atoning death on the cross.

God forgive me

Recently on a ride-share I asked my driver, “May I ask you a question about your faith?” and he said, “Sure.”

I then asked him a question that I often ask: “If you were suddenly to die and stand before God, and God asked you, ‘Why should I let you into heaven?’ what would you answer?”

His response was to describe to me several of his religious activities. He said he went to mass daily. He showed me a prayer card that he keeps with him always. And he said he tries to treat people well. But he said no one can be good enough for God.

Clearly he was sincere about his religion, but what stood out to me was what he did not say. Although he is Roman Catholic, he never said anything about Jesus Christ. He has faith in God, but when asked what will make him acceptable to God and give him access to heaven, his default answer was not to mention Jesus Christ.

My driver is not alone. In all the times I have asked people that question, I don’t remember a single time that the clear, immediate answer was, “I am trusting in Jesus Christ as my Savior.” Ninety percent of the time, people do not mention him at all (even those who say they believe in him).

That’s a critical problem.

On what basis God accepts us

This is the sixth in a series of articles on the subject of what God requires of those who want to know him and walk in his ways. We need to know something all-important: God does not accept everybody. He does not accept everybody into heaven, and he does not accept everybody into a relationship with him. In fact, on our own merits, God does not accept anybody!

The Bible says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). That means we fall short of God’s holy, perfect standard.

That’s a critical problem because God does not grade on a curve. He is perfectly holy and just and does not lower his standards or requirements. Just as a dead fly in a bowl of soup spoils the whole bowl, so the presence of any sin in us pollutes us morally and spiritually and makes us unacceptable to him.

His highest requirement is expressed in these two commandments: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Mark 12:30–31).

Who has perfectly obeyed either of those commandments for even one day? By nature human beings are simply not capable of that. We have a fallen nature. We are broken. That’s why we are basically selfish and must try so hard to be loving. That’s why relationships are so difficult. It’s why we resist centering our lives in God rather than in ourselves.

If we are to be accepted by God, it won’t be because we are good enough for him. No one comes close. No one can jump a mile high, and no one can meet God’s requirements.

God’s solution

Because God is loving and merciful, he decided to offer a solution to our critical problem. This is why he sent his unique Son to the world to become a man. Because Jesus is God, he was able to live a perfect life and then die a death on the cross for our sins that had divine, infinite capability to satisfy God’s just and holy requirements.

The death of Jesus atones for our failures. The death of Jesus on the cross is the only thing that enables God to forgive us without compromising his justice. He won’t ever compromise his holy justice, but he will in mercy forgive us because of what Jesus has done.

But God still does not forgive everyone or accept everyone.

The requirement of faith in Jesus Christ

The Bible says, “16 God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3:16–18).

Notice in this verse the necessity of believing in Jesus Christ.

Returning to my opening story, this is why there is something deeply unsatisfactory about my driver’s answer. Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. His default confidence was not in Jesus Christ, even though he believed in him.

God’s way and our way

God’s way: We find acceptance with him only through faith in Jesus Christ.

Our way: We rely on our own efforts to be good and religious to make us acceptable to God. We try to accumulate merit in God’s sight. We want some other way than to rely fully on Jesus Christ as our only way to find approval with God.

Next week: More on the crucial role of Jesus Christ for those who want to know God.

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When God Hides

Why, God, Why?

Have you ever asked God, Why?

Trusting God means always being content to live with no more than God in his wisdom wants to reveal, when he wants to reveal it.

We’re currently looking at how God both reveals and hides. In this post we see how to respond when God hides things, when there are mysteries he does not explain, when his ways are inscrutable (Rom. 11:33).

For there is much that God does not tell us. Proverbs 25:2 says, “It is the glory of God to conceal things.” Deuteronomy 29:29 says, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God.”

Life is full of mysteries and secrets. We all have questions. We all are curious. One of the biggest words in English is “why.” We want to know the future.

Unbearable knowledge

God knows there is much that we do not need to know, much that would actually be harmful for us to know. We are not God. Even if we had the capacity to know all, we could not bear it.

Jesus said, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” (John 16:12).

Although the knowledge God reveals and wants us to have is good and helpful, other knowledge can be a great burden. Solomon himself discovered that in some ways “he who increases knowledge increases sorrow” (Ecclesiastes 1:18).

The apostle Paul said, “I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil” (Romans 16:19).

It was the desire to gain knowledge independently of God that caused Adam and Eve to stumble. When Satan tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, he said,

“You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. (Genesis 3:4–6)

It was the desire to know the future that led King Saul to the fortune teller (1 Samuel 28).

The desire for wisdom and knowledge is good (Proverbs 1:1–4; 2:1–11), but the desire to get them in a way that involved disobedience, excluded God, and trusted Satan was not good.

Trust fills the gap

God created us to be in his image, but not to know all things. Rather, he created us to trust him in all things.

Thank God for limited knowledge. Partial ignorance is a gift to us, but only because God rules our lives and world. If God did not exist, ignorance would never be good. But because of his loving providence over all and in all, we can trust him for what he hides from us.

As long as we know that in all things he is working for our good and he is in control, we can trust him and accept our limitations.

David understood this. He wrote,

“O LORD, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.” (Psalm 131:1–2)

To be human is to see only so far

Most tests that God ordains for us require that we not know some things. Our faith would not be tested if we knew when and how God would fulfill his promises.

Even Jesus was kept in the dark until the Father wanted him to know something. For example, Jesus did not know when his Second Coming would occur, and he accepted that (Mark 13:32).

So limited knowledge is part of our human nature. God limits our knowledge because he wants us to rely on him, not on ourselves. We have to accept that, and we have to let limited knowledge lead us always to depend on the one with unlimited, complete knowledge (1 John 3:20).

God wants us to pray for knowledge and wisdom (James 1:5) and trust him for what he chooses to reveal. Don’t get frustrated if you seek him and he keeps secrets or makes you wait for understanding.

God’s ways and our ways

God’s ways: He knows all things but reveals only what is good for us.

Our ways: We want to know all things. We do not want to live by faith and trust in God. Instead we want God to explain himself and justify his ways. We do not want to wait for God’s perfect time to reveal his wisdom and knowledge. We can be too curious.

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To Whom Does God Talk?

know more about God

God loves to share knowledge, wisdom, and understanding.

How can I know more about God?

This is the fourth article in a series on what is required of those who want to know more about God and his ways. In the previous post we saw that he both hides and reveals himself. Let’s look today at what that requires of us.

Jesus said, “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” And he said to them, “Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you. For to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” (Mark 4:23–25)

These enormously important words from Jesus about what we can know about God and his ways come in a chapter about the Word of God and how we need to respond to it.

Jesus is teaching his disciples that when they hear the Word of God they need to pay full attention, and they need to receive wholeheartedly all that God says—and desire more. This is what he means by “the measure you use.”

How hungry are you?

It’s as if God drives a truckload of apples into a farmer’s market. He parks and posts a sign that says, “Free apples—all you can carry.”

And he means it. If someone brings him an empty knapsack, he fills it with apples. If someone brings a paper bag, he fills it. To the one who has no container but wants one apple in each hand, he gives two apples. If someone wants to fill their car’s trunk with apples, they get hundreds of them.

Jesus says whatever container you bring, whatever measure you use, he will fill it. And he tells every person as they leave that if they will come back later with another container, a larger one, he will fill that too.

One woman who filled her car trunk with apples came back later driving a pickup truck and said if the farmer meant what he said she wanted a payload full. He smiled and clapped his hands and got excited. He loved people who loved apples. Gladly he filled her truck for free and told her to come back later for more.

God is willing and generous

The apples are divine knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. And God loves to share them.

He knows some people want all they can get of spiritual truth. Others want a bagful. Others want less because apples are heavy and require work to carry home. Some gladly receive one apple, eat it, and are full. Others want a sample like you get on a toothpick at the grocery store, but decide that’s enough. Others say, “No thanks.”

God is willing to give; what varies is the appetite of those who hear, and whether they wholeheartedly believe God’s Word, and whether they are willing to exert themselves to think about God’s Word until they understand it, and whether they choose to obey it.

Hunger. Belief. Thinking. Obedience.

Do you have ears to hear?

Jesus said, “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” In other words, if you are willing to hear what I say, then pay attention and receive my words because I am now revealing God’s truth and ways.

When God chooses to reveal himself and his truth, we are responsible to get as much as we can. Those who have a big appetite, belief, the willingness to persistently exert themselves  to understand, and obedience to what they hear, God gladly gives more knowledge, wisdom, and understanding.

Those who prefer other things get what they prefer. In fact, Jesus warns: “from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”

We are responsible for what we know, but God ultimately controls the supply of apples. He owns all the trees. He hides and reveals. We are utterly dependent.

God’s Ways and Our Ways

God’s ways: He is super generous with wisdom and knowledge. He approves of those who want more of what he reveals. He faults those who have no interest in it.

Our ways: If we are foolish, we pay little or no attention to what God has revealed in the Bible, nature, and the church. If we are wise, we make every effort to learn, understand, and apply God’s words.

God keeps talking to those who are listening.

More next week on the crucial topic of how we know more about God.

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Humble Learning Required

what you can know given that God hides and reveals

What can we know?

God requires us to make every effort to learn what he has revealed, and to trust him when he keeps secrets.

“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever” —Deuteronomy 29:29

You have decisions to make, but you’re not sure what to do.

Things are happening in your life and world that don’t make sense.

You want to understand God, his will, and the Bible, but some things are not adding up.

You really want to know

What you can know is a super important and relevant subject because we need knowledge and we all want to know everything. We are all curious. Literally, if we could, we would be like God and know everything about everything.

We want to know how to do everything with perfect skill and success. How to find perfect happiness, relationships, and peace. How everything works.

And how every event in history actually happened.

We want to know.

The details about how the universe and life began. What the future holds.

When our prayers will be answered. Why something bad happened. How long we will have to wait for that job, marriage, child to be conceived, success on the job, visa approval, breakthrough, healing, baptism in the Spirit, promotion, or answer to our question. Or is our wait in vain?

We want to know what every verse in the Bible means. Why God does what he does.

On and on it goes. So many books, so little time. We want to know.

What God wants us to know

Unfortunately, at least from our perspective, God doesn’t want us to know everything. That’s what the opening Scripture above from Deuteronomy says. There are “secret things,” and then there are “things that are revealed.” And Moses says the one who controls that is God.

In fact it all begins with what God is willing to reveal about himself. You need to know two things about God: He hides himself, and he reveals himself. The Bible says:

“Truly, you are a God who hides yourself, O God of Israel, the Savior” (Isaiah 45:15).

“He who forms the mountains, creates the wind, and reveals his thoughts to man, he who turns dawn to darkness, and treads the high places of the earth—the LORD God Almighty is his name” (Amos 4:13, NIV).

That means he doesn’t completely hide himself. And he doesn’t completely reveal himself.

At this point there are some things he wants us to know about him and his ways, and so he has revealed those things in the Bible, in nature, in the church, and elsewhere. Otherwise, on our own, we could not know them.

That’s because knowing God is not like studying scientific questions such as how trees grow. No matter how hard we explore, humans cannot know anything about God—literally zero—unless he chooses to reveal it.

But there are other things God has actually chosen to hide. He doesn’t want us to know them now. They are divine secrets. They are mysteries. And no one can uncover what God has hidden.

Mysteries

For example, the two most important things for any human now to know were locked up in a vault called mystery until 2,000 years ago: namely, Jesus and the gospel.

The Bible talks about “God’s mystery, which is Christ” (Colossians 2:2).

And, “the mystery hidden for ages in God” (Ephesians 3:9).

And, “the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints” (Colossians 1:26).

Let’s continue this crucially relevant subject next week. For now, let’s close with these two foundations:

God’s way: He hides, and he reveals.

Our way: We may or may not pay careful attention to what God reveals. Or we may or may not trust God when he hides himself and his purposes. We want to have control over what we can know. We would like to know everything.