It seems to me that people (me included) have a tendency to think as if they get God. They know him. Thinkers think that they know God because they know all about the bible. Feelers feel that they know God because they, unlike the Thinkers, have really experienced him. Of course the Thinkers will reply, how can you know what you don’t understand? The Feelers will retort, how can you know what you only know about? I’m convinced that in some manner both are correct. While I’m not completely certain what side of the fence I fall on, I’m convicted of one thing. No one has the corner on knowing God—except for God.

Reading in John Owen’s the Mortification of Sin in Believers today I was reminded of the wild largeness and profoundness of God. The more anyone truly knows God, the more they’ll inevitably find that they really know very little of God. His ways are not our ways. Owen puts it this way, “Though you know enough to keep you low and humble, yet how little a portion is it that you know of him!” The more we come to really know God, the more we come see how much greater he is that we are.

Paul describes it beautifully; “now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.” (1 Cor. 13:12) Today, we have only partial understanding of God. We see him dimly through tainted flesh. What we can know of him is what he has given us in his perfect and finished revelation of Scripture. While the thinkers can think, and the feelers can feel, it will all be in part until the perfect comes and we will know fully, just as we are fully known. But until that day as we seek knowledge, we should also grow in humility, realizing that we are not getting bigger in as much as we know God, but rather we are seeing that God is much bigger than we originally understood.

I mentioned two groups of people, Thinkers and Feelers. I would like to add briefly that regardless of who you are in Christ, we have been given the Word of God. It’s his perfect revelation to us and we have nothing of absolute spiritual truth beyond it. Whoever we are in Christ and in whatever way our minds operate operate, the Word of God must always be central.

Jesus, I pray that you would give us, your bride, a profound humility before you. To hold tightly to what you have revealed to us in your scripture, but recognize always that you are infinite and we are finite. Give us hope for the day that we will see you clearly and strength to live and move as you have called us. Sanctify us, God, for the sake of your glory!

 

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