5-2-2026 Let’s Get a Handle
I just read
some stats the other day which stated that approximately one-third of the
world’s 8 billion people population profess to be Christian. Actually lit gave a range between 28% to 31%
and that was ‘professing’ Christians.
Again, that is that they said they attended church somewhere, sometime
or another. Okay, for a lot of people
life isn’t always so good, so let us pull a ‘Job’ here.
My question
is “How many people really know what – excuse me – Who God is?”
I said that
I’m pulling a “Job” here. The book of
Job has 42 chapters. Chapter one and two
set the stage then for 30 ½ chapters Job and his three friends argued as to
whether or not Job needed to confess his sin.
Then Elihu, a man much younger than the four, reminded everybody who God
is and the things He has done. Now Job
had previously challenged God (Job
13:1-3) and God responds to Job’s challenge from chapter 38-41. Finally Job says “I have heard of You by the
things people have said, but now my eye has seen you.” (Job 42:5) Job had a personal
encounter with the Lord and then realized who the lord truly is. Read Job, then read Job again, and ask the
Holy Ghost to lead you through the passages.
Read the aloud so you can hear AND see what is being said. What we see,
what we hear and what we speak, we retain.
Now, we’re
going to look at some passages which will help us in our understanding. Father actually started me on this quest
several years ago when He pointed out John
1:1 to me. John 1:1, of course says:
“In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God.”
The New World translation says that “the Word was a God.”
Father took
me back to Genesis 1:1-2: “In the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was without form
and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of
the waters.” Let’s look at the
definition of some words used in John 1 and Genesis 1.
In John 1:1
the Word is the Greek word logos
(G3056) something said or thought, have intent, having to do, matter, say or
speak. Basically, something one intends to
say. Or we might say “what God
intends to say”.
The Greek
word for form is tehuw (8414)
which means desolate, without form, empty or nothing.
Void is the Hebrew word bohuw *H922) which is emptiness or
undistinguishable.
Darkness is the Hebrew word chushek (H2822) which is dark, misery,
ignorance, death or dim.
Deep is the Hebrew word is tehowm (H8415) which an abyss, a surging
mass of water, or subterranean water.
The Hebrew
word for Spirit is ruwach (H7307)
which means breath, exhalation, wind, spirit of a rational being or blast of
air.
Face is the Greek word paniym (G6440) which is face
(appearance), forefront
Waters is the Greek word mayim (H4325) which means water, juice,
urine or semen.
Looking at
these definitions, we see that the world was dark and that darkness had great
depth and the darkness could even refer to a mental condition. The Spirit of
God moved upon the face of the waters which could be H2o, urine or even semen
(the seeds of life) and God’s Spirit moved across what we could see of the
waters.
We know that
God is Spirit those who worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and truth (John 4:24). So we see that this beginning there is
nothing (for God to work with) and for God, there is nothing impossible to accomplish
(Luke 1:37).
So God spoke
and brought everything into existence. God
tells Moses to tell Israel ‘I AM that I AM’ so tell them ‘I AM’ has sent you (Exod. 3:14). He is ‘Alpha and Omega’, the First and the
Last’ (Rev. 1:11). Before His throne, the three beasts praise
God continually saying that God is Holy for He was, is and is yet to come (Rev. 4:8).
Are we
getting the picture of God’s totality, here?
I mentioned Job earlier. Chapters 33 – 37 give Elihu’s take on the
situation and describe many of the qualitied of the living God. Chapter 38 – 41, God steps in and asks Job
where was he as he (God) was creating
everything and interacting with man. The
in chapter 42, Job gets the picture and realizes who God really is. Remember, job knew all about God from
what men have told him, but he got up close and personal with the creator of
all things and came to know who God actually is (Job 42:5).
Have we had
a personal revelation of this in our own lives?
The unity of
God.
In the
garden, God gave Adam and Eve one commandment “You may eat of every tree
freely, but you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen. 2:9 & 2:17). Later, God gave Moses Ten Commandments of
which the first is: You shall have no
other God’s before me; you shall not make an image of anything above the
earth, upon the earth or beneath the earth; you shall not bow down ad worship
before them (Gen 20:3-6). In his letters, John tells us that we should love, for God is love (1 John 4:7-8). John 4 told us that we worship God in Spirit
and in truth because, in part, this is how we express our love towards our
heavenly Father. We show our love through our worshipping Him and we learn that
being obedient to God’s Word is better than sacrifice (1 Sam. 15:22). Sacrifice is
what we do for God where obedience comes from our heart.
God gave us
the 10 Commandments (Exod. 20:3-17)
for the ‘dos’ and don’ts provide a basic description of love. Read them!
We do what we do to please Father because we love Him. Read and understand what each commandment
says and that light in the darkness just might start getting a bit brighter.
The people,
with whom Jesus was speaking, asked “What is the greatest commandment” and
Jesus responded “Love the Lord God with all your heart, soul and mind and the
second is like it – love your neighbor as yourself for the Law and the prophets(everything)
depends on these two commandments” (Matt. 22:36-40). The
situation is reversed when a lawyer ask Jesus how can he obtain eternal life
and Jesus asks him “How do you read the Law?”
The lawyer, essentially cited what was in Matthew 22, “Love the Lord God
with ...” The lawyer knew what the Law
said (Luke 10:25-28).
We’ve
established that God is Spirit and that God is Love but we’re not done
yet. Now we get to the icing on the cake – Jesus.
In the
beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God! (John 1:1) Jesus was at the feast of the dedication, in
the temple on Solomon’s porch, Jesus was challenged. Jesus declares knowledge of His sheep and
that He and the Father are one (John
10:30). Jesus was accused of having
a devil but can a devil do the miracles Jesus did? His works speak for themselves (John 10:38). Jesus declared God as His Father and was
accused of blasphemy (John 10:19-39). The Jews claimed that Jesus claimed to be
God. No wonder they were upset with
Jesus with His claim to be the Messiah.
They just couldn’t accept it.
God claimed
in His Law that we should not bow down before other Gods (Exod. 20:5). Yet the magi
came to the young child Jesus (about two years old) and worshipped Him (Matt. 2:11). A man, blind from birth, was healed by Jesus
and he bowed down and worshipped him (John
9:1-38). We also see where Mary Magdalene and the other
Mary, as they rushed to tell the other disciples about the resurrection,
encountered Jesus and worshipped Him (Matt.
28:9) and the eleven apostles worshipped Him (Matt. 28:16-17). Here, the
word ‘worshipped is the Greek word proakuneo
(G4352) which means to kiss one’s hand, lay prostrate in homage as in reverence
or adoration or worship. Yet, we see Jesus being worshipped at least, by the
magi, a blind man as well as His disciples.
The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (NWT) declares Jesus
was ‘a god’ (John 1:1), yet in King James, and other modern translation such as
New American Bible, The Message and the New International Bible (NIV) all read
‘the Word was God”. Just a few
examples. Are we starting to see the
connection? To keep things in
perspective that in the Book of Revelation, we see that John fell down at the
feet of the angel, who had been sharing this information with him, to worship
(also proakuneo) Him. The angel said “Don’t do this for I am a
fellow servant as well as your brothers the prophets who keep what this book is
saying and worship God.” (Rev. 22:8-9)
What we have
now seen is the Spirit is the Father, Jesus is the Word of God and the Holy
Ghost is the breath of God. Father tells
us that only He is worthy of our worship yet we see where people who were
healed, His apostles and His disciples all worshipped Jesus and Father tells us
in the first Commandment not to have any other Gods before him – and that means
beside Him as well. Are we seeing unity
here?
We’ve
already read where the Jews protested Jesus because they saw the evidence where
He said He was equal to God and the Jews knew that no ‘man’ could be equal to
God (Isa. 40:21-5) .
Also consider
this – Adam was created so even though He was considered a son (Gen. 1:26-28, Luke 3:38), he was made
from the dust of the earth (Gen.1:26-27),
he was not begotten. With no earthly
Father, Jesus was born into this world (Matt.
1:18-25) to redeem us, out of a sinful nature (Eph. 1:3-7), into an eternal existence with or Father (John 17:26). We see in Genesis that
when God spoke, His breath (the Holy Ghost) put His Words into action so God
spoke Jesus (His Word) into Mary’s womb and the Holy Ghost carried out the
command.
So as we
receive Jesus into our hearts, we boldly look forward to being with Father/Son
and Holy Ghost throughout eternity.
Amen
