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Un-Sunday School Answers

“It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.”  Proverbs 25:2

(I don’t normally rock the KJV with my quotes, but it provides a convenient excuse to share this link)

This post is inspired by a question presented at Bible study last night, namely: “How does Jesus think/feel/love,” to which someone responded “I don’t know… great… really well…  [Can we even really know this stuff?].”  She was right about the loving part, but if you know me, I was having none of her answer.

Because we can know this stuff.  Or at least, as Solomon says, it is honorable for us to search the answers out.  If we believe God still speaks today, and if we believe that Jesus was serious when He instructed us to “Seek and you will find” (Matthew 7:7), then by extension we must believe that the pursuit of wisdom and of the deep things of God, is the glory of man.  Now an interesting side note is that the Greek word here for “seek” (and “ask” and “knock”) implies a perpetual tense - “seek without ceasing,” if you will.  We cannot pray “God reveal to me how you think/feel/love/etc” once and expect Him to do so.  Rather we must pray that prayer in conjunction with study, and a constantly renewed passion to earnestly “search out [the] matter.”  Just because we do not know something now, does not mean God does not desire to make it known in His timing (even if that is not on this side of Heaven). (confer 1 Cor 13:9-12)  In fact, nowhere in the Bible (that I can think of) does Jesus say that something will not be revealed, given the proper timeline.

Coincidentally, I happened to crack The Pursuit of God open last night to this gem:

“May we not safely conclude that, as the realities of Mount Sinai were apprehended by the senses, so the realities of Mount Zion are to be grasped by the soul?  And this not by any trick of the imagination, but in downright actuality.  The soul has eyes with which to see and ears with which to hear.  Feeble they may be from long disuse, but by the life-giving touch of Christ alive now and capable of sharpest sight and most sensitive hearing.”  (58)

An interesting followup question was “What prevents us from acting [as Jesus did]?”  A guy offered the idea of ‘fear of failure,’ IE that we will realize just how far removed we are from the heart (and actions) of Jesus, and through our inability to act like Him, will be forced to come face to face with the depths of our depravity.  A difficult pill to swallow indeed.  However this got me to thinking: perhaps the ‘fear of success’ is just as chilling: to truly be like Christ, the cost is immeasurable.  Now, so is the reward, do not get me wrong, but to love (as one example) as Christ loved, we have to sacrifice.  For instance, as Pastor Miles McPherson said, “instead of worrying about being right, we have to worry about doing right.”  This is especially difficult for me, since I always am right, but this offers just a glimpse of the radical thought/soul/life reorientation we have to undertake to be more like Christ.

Ok, that’s all for now.  I will leave you with another Tozer prayer:

“O God, quicken to life every power within me, that I may lay hold on eternal things.  Open my eyes that I may see; give me acute spiritual perception; enable me to taste Thee and know that Thou art good.  Make Heaven more real to me than any earthly thing has ever been.  Amen.” (59)