“God created everything with one purpose and one purpose only, that His creation would reflect the majesty of His nature, the beauty of His holiness, and demonstrate the accessibility to His loveliness.” Does that statement hold any water? Can we set our sails trusting the winds of those words to navigate us to the shores of divine reality? Before you answer that question perhaps it would be good to break down the basic tenets of the statement concerning what that “purpose” entails.
The nature of God seems to be more subjective than absolute depending on who you ask and where you live; not because it, or He, is wavering conditional to the need for popularity and acceptance, but rather because we are. I would go further and say that religion, and Christianity in particular as it relates to our discussion, has become one of the largest tools used for the manipulation of the masses through the self- promotion of the few. I don’t believe that was ever the intent, but somewhere along the path of history it has morphed into what we have today; a broken image of what was once a thriving movement of reconciliation, healing and relational restoration with Creator God. Sometimes I cannot help but acknowledge the futility in discussing such a subject as our minds cannot comprehend or absorb it intellectually. The nature of God is spiritually discerned and can only be experienced on that level. Where we tend to get into trouble is when we begin to speak about things such as this as if we have obtained hidden revelation unavailable to “the least of these” when in fact we hold very little understanding, if any, in comparison.
The human perception of who God is, fundamentally, is as diverse as the cultures that constitute human civilization and those who lead it.This is true by default. You might ask why, as I do. The best answer I have received is that, while it is true that God has created us in His image, the image referenced is not one that is human, for God is not, by nature, human. If He was He would not have had to become as a man in order to reach us. Rather, God created within man the responsibility to reflect the nature of who He is from within the many cultures represented by man. There are many, many facets to His nature and many reflective representations of that nature within the ethos systems humanity contains. You have heard it said, I’m sure, that God is not American, Chinese, Lebanese or even Jewish. He just “is.” If we spent as much time truly reflecting just one particular aspect of His nature in loving our neighbor as opposed to judging or hating them, the world in which we all live would be affectedly different.
When we approach the nature of God from merely the pretense of human understanding we will misunderstand and misrepresent it every time! I do believe in “ultimate” truth. I also believe in one God, one Father, so on and so forth as the Apostle’s Creed describes, so please do not stone me as a heretic, yet. What I do not believe in is many of the methods and ways God’s created images have chosen to represent Him and how those who are officially “qualified” to do so have been elevated and segregated in a Christian caste system. This, I believe, needs reforming. God is not, nor will He ever be, a respecter of persons. This includes personalities of people; He’s no respecter of those either. I find it hard to believe that the only people who are qualified to teach or lead are those who are the most charismatic or the most educated. Actually, with even the most casual reading of the New Testament the opposite is painfully apparent. How did Jesus respond to the question of “who would be the greatest in the Kingdom?”
When Jesus referred to the way the world would identify His disciples, you know, their “love for one another,” who was He referring to as the recipient of that love? Was it the love shared between the “chosen disciples” as a closed group which would serve as a witness to the world? Or, could it have included the expression of love generated from one of His disciples lavished upon one who was not? Are we not commanded to love our enemies? The nature of God contains many things that a few among us have experienced. Some aspects to His nature remain untouched or experienced by anyone to be sure.
Jesus said wide is the path that leads to death and multitudes will walk together there. But narrow is the path that leads to life and few will ever find it. Perhaps in our efforts to grasp the nature of God the apropos thing to do would be to begin expressing and demonstrating the most apparent characteristic of His nature: authentic, sacrificial love. Something tells me the other attributes to His nature will remain hidden until we pass through that gate first.
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