November 1, 2020 

By Shirley Wiggins

THE GOD I WANT TO KNOW

 

This is the God I want to know:  The God Jesus knew.

Jesus came to me in 1981 with an invitation:  You believe in God, believe in Me also.

The timing was unbelievable.  I was on my way to my mother’s funeral in the latter part of June 1981, traveling back to my “home” church.

The location was pretty incredible too:  I was sitting in the front seat of our family car, my husband was driving and my youngest brother and his young wife were sitting in the back seat.

The invitation came in an amazing way.  It was written with words clearly seen but no earthly hand delivered it.  It was visual and it is now imbedded forever in my memory because it appeared to me in my “mind’s eye.”

Some of the mystery has now been explained.  The message has been preserved for a long time in The Holy Bible.  The words of Scripture I “read” were found later in the New King James Version of the Bible at John 14:1-3 and this was its entirety that I read in my mind’s eye on that particular day:

            “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.  In My Father’s house are many mansions, if it were not so, I would have told you.  I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”

My reaction on that day to this startling thing that had never happened to me before continues to astound me!  I said not a word to anyone, I was so deep in my own grief I could hardly function.  My only conscious thought that I can still remember today is that with every fresh wave of reality that swept over me was that my mother was gone forever from me and I could not survive without her.  I now know I was in shock, but I had no knowledge of that then.

At the time, I took comfort in several things:  God had prepared a place for my mother and she was now with Him.  Only in the years to come would I truly open up that invitation that was sent for comfort, but also for my personal good as well.  So much I needed to know!

As the familiar hymns were sung with their words meant to bring comfort, the pastor shared kind words about my mother’s obvious love of being in church and hearing the sermons about the God she depended upon. 

And then an astounding thing happened:   I had the undeniable ‘sense’ of being placed in the all-encompassing  embrace of warmth, light, and inexpressible love and security in the understanding that all is well:  Everything is going to be all right.  I actually smiled in the depth of that comfort.

I cannot explain what occurred any better than that – even after all these years.

Neither can I understand how I experienced these two amazing things and then reverted to life with its grief almost as though it had not  happened.  Not entirely as if it hadn’t happened because in the pastor’s remarks, he read the same words I had received in my mind.    I contacted him later to ask where those words could be found in the Bible.   I had never,  to my knowledge, heard them before, nor had I ever read them in the Bible.

Obviously, I was a very young and immature Christian still trying to find my way in the Christian life.   Also obvious to me now is that I thought I knew a lot more than I actually did.   At this point in time, I had spent years teaching Bible classes, mostly to young children, but also a young marrieds Sunday School class.

It has been a slow unfolding of the truth that Jesus came to give me that day.   A belief in God requires that we must also know His Son, Jesus Christ.   Spiritual maturity is required in the Christian life.

God requires that each person who comes to Him for salvation must come through His Son, Jesus Christ:  “This is real love--not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. ...All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. ...   We love each other because He loved us first. ... Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has become a child of God.  And everyone who loves the Father loves His children, too.”  1 John 4:10, 15, 19; 5:1.

The Bible is our Teacher, the Holy Spirit is our Guide into all truth:  “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.”  John 16:13.

The Christian life is a quest for learning all we can about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit:  the inseparable Triune God.  The Bible is the source of Truth, all truth.

The longer I live, the more I desire to know the God of truth and the Truth of God.

Frequently I get a “wake up call” to take life very seriously because life is short and eternity is long.  Since the COVID-19 virus has invaded the nations of the world with such force, along with the unrest throughout the world, and the escalating lawlessness in my own country of birth, I feel the great need to know God and Jesus better than I actually Do.

This morning I awakened with a sense that everything has changed, a shift in time has occurred.  I have considered that as a Christian for many years, I have placed my trust in the Lord.  However, almost daily,  opportunities for fear to dominate over trust present themselves to me.  

One of my favorite daily devotionals is one from Bible Gateway by Dallas Willard.  Today it is entitled, “The God Jesus Knew.”    I was taken with the fact that perhaps my knowledge about God needed to be examined to be sure that what I think I know is actually the truth!

Thus,  my remembrances this morning about that special day when Jesus kindly told me that while I believed in God, I needed to believe in Him as well.  That has been unfolding for 39 years now.

There is no substitute for Truth and getting it right about salvation is a must, but, pursuing the truth about God and Jesus is an absolute joy.  This is what life was meant for:  to know the God who gave life!  That is the purpose for every life.

To know the God Who is the Source of life.  Life is pointless and meaningless until we know the God of life.  Jesus came into the world to show us God.  Jesus came to die that we might be reunited to the God who gave us birth.  God resurrected Jesus from death to life that we might be able to call God, the Father of Jesus Christ, “Father.”  Our Father.  Abba! Father!

“The God that Jesus knew was perhaps very different from the God often described in our contemporary world.”  - Dallas Willard.

“The heart cannot love what the mind does not know.” – Jen Wilkin.

The Two Great Commandments have to do with love. When Jesus was asked which is the first commandment of all, He answered:  “ The first of all the commandments is:  ‘Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. ‘ This is the first commandment, and the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  There is no other commandment greater than these.” – Mark 12:29-31.  See also Deuteronomy 6.

Since we are commanded to love, and since the heart cannot love what the mind does not know, isn’t it time to know the God that Jesus knew?

To know the God of love, the God who gave life, the God of Creation, the God of Covenant, the God who desires to be, not just mankind’s creator God, but to be our Father, is this not what our life is to be about ---- to Know Him?

Open The Holy Bible and discover this God who knows you and loves you, but cannot save you until you come to Him, through His Son, Jesus Christ.  Know Him today, I pray.