What We Think About GodНамуна

THE LOVE OF GOD POURED OUT

So what is God like? Best said, our God is unlike anything—and yet the best of everything—that we can perceive. 

In Exodus 3:14, God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.'” In 1 John 1:5, we read, “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” 

Author Christine Caine says it this way: "Even when I cannot see him, I can hear the beautiful gallop of God’s heartbeat for humanity." God loves tangibly and consistently into the most unlikely places, and to the most unlikely people of this world. 

He is the one sitting on the doorstep of the brothel waiting for the john to emerge. 

He is one in the garbage heap of the slum waiting to sit among the rubbish for the sake of another. 

He is the one who embraces the young man struggling in his identity. 

He is the one who sits in silence during the rock concert, waiting to take the addicted 40-something to a coffee shop. 

He is the one sitting with the corporate executive working another 12-hour day, and he is also the one caring for the man’s wife as she puts the kids to bed alone for the twelfth consecutive night.

He is the first one to say hello each morning and the last one to say goodnight. 

Our God is the one who offers the homeless man an ear and a blanket. Our God is the one who sits in the waiting room of the abortion clinic, whispering words of hope and kindness into the ears of a suffering woman—and into the ears of the clinic worker. 

It is a love that crosses faith lines and agnostic lines. It is a love that crosses sexual and political and ethnic identity. It is a love that is so strong in itself that it never fears another. 

It is time that we, the church, take that love as ours and carry that love to our world. It is only when and if we can finally see the world through a lens of love when our witness can truly be the light that breaks into the darkness. The great missionary C.T. Studd once wrote, “Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.”

Tozer was right—what we think about God is the most important thing about us, and impacts each decision we make, each relationship we have, each responsibility we hold. 

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. Who are the unlikely people in your life to whom God may be asking you to reach out?

2. Give an example of when the church has moved into more unlikely places so that those far from God would be reached.

3. In your most honest moments, who are you hesitant to reach out to, either because of fear or a lack of desire? Begin to pray that God would move you to action.

4. Reconsider what you believe God to be like. Has your definition expanded?