Bro. Eddie Ministries Reading Plan: The Word Gives HopeHalimbawa

To make Himself known

Some believe that God’s main business in this world is to heal or mend hurting people. That is true. But there’s more to that. He wants to make Himself known to all mankind.

Yet we may wonder and ask, “Is God helpless that He could not force His subjects to acknowledge Him?” He is not and never will be. He has not lost strength and will not gain any. His strength is complete. He does not need any help to fulfill His purposes. On the contrary, it is man’s free will that hinders God’s aim to be closer to His creation.

Adam and Eve, the first man and woman that God had created and placed in the Garden of Eden, were convinced by the serpent to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis 3:1-7, 22). They chose to know what is good and evil than to have intimate relationship with God.

God’s union with man was cut off when they broke His command. Sin ended it. So Adam and Eve and the people born after them bore that sinful nature. And they were given to strange gods. Since then, the story of God reaching out to His creation continues.

His attempt to form Israel as His nation and people was an example. He did not just gather the multitudes of Israelites and deliver them from 400-year old slavery in Egypt. He wanted to make them a people to whom He could reveal Himself. He wanted them to proclaim in the midst of a pagan world that He is God and there is no other.

Egypt was focused on idolatry, with scores of gods such as the Nile River, locusts, frogs, flies, snakes, dung beetles and among others. All these they held up as objects of idol worship.

So God judged the Egyptians by sending them 10 plagues [Exodus 12:12] - that they might know know His power and glory, that there is no other god besides Him.

God said to Moses. “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these miraculous signs of Mine among them, that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the Lord.’” (Exodus 10:1-2)

Such display of God’s awesome power was not meant to impress the Israelites at all. It was meant to draw them nigh to Him, to make them realize that He rules over everything, to make Himself known to them, that He is just and faithful.

So God delivered them from the Egyptians. Then He set up His laws over the budding nation of Israel. He set up His laws through Moses to establish relationship with the people He had chosen for Himself. But He knew that the law lacks the power to draw them near to Him. Centuries had passed and it proved that the law was weak in that it made nothing perfect. (Hebrews 7:19)

The New Testament explained that the law was put in charge to lead men to Christ that they might be justified by faith. (Galatians 3:24)

God knows that sin disabled men to draw near to Him. That is why He sent His Son Jesus at a time appointed to do for us what the law could not do. He broke down the walls between the sinful men and the holy God through His death. He paid the price so we can draw near to God.

God is not in hiding. There is no secret formula to know Him. He desires that we know Him. But we need to cross the bridge Christ had built to turn us back to God.

Ask Him now who said, “I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord.” (Jeremiah 24:7a)

Reflection:
1. How long have you known God? How would you describe your relationship with Him? What can you say about what Paul said in Philippians 3:10?
2. To get to know God through His Word, make a plan that will enable you to read the Bible in a year. Jot down on this space the details on how you are going to do this.

A lifetime is not enough for us to know God.