Have you ever stopped to consider what defines God? Most people have a basic conceptualization of who God must be. If He is God, then He is eternal; He has no beginning or end. He is the all-powerful Creator of all things; He brought the universe into existence. He knows everything. There’s nothing He cannot do. He is a moral Being. He is above all, completely beyond us. We would assume all these things to be a part of His nature, in order for Him to truly be God. After all, who is God if He is limited in any sense: temporal, unknowing, powerless, immoral…?
How do we respond to a God who is so far beyond us? As humans, we are by nature limited in everysense: temporal, unknowing, powerless, and immoral. As such, we struggle to relate to God, fighting for power, cowering in fear, trying to behave, or even rejecting God. He is far greater! Even the great Apostle Paul wrote: “Oh, the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!” (Romans 11:33).
Can we know God? Can we come to Him? The amazing reality is that the unknowable God makes Himself known. He has given us the Bible, which affirms all those truths that He is far beyond us… but He brings Himself into reach by telling us who He is, and by one amazing and incomprehensible event – He became man and walked the earth. “And the Word (Jesus) became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). The God beyond us became the God among us.
Can you imagine?! The man Jesus embodied the God beyond us. He is eternal. He affirmed that when He said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58). He is our Creator. He knows everything. He is sinless. And He demonstrated His power when He rose again from the dead. Jesus is the amazing, unreachable God – and He came to us, and we can know Him.
Christmas is about this mystery. “‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,’ which is translated, ‘God with us’” (Matthew 1:23). How things changed when He became the God among us! We are not meant to overcome our limitations; we are meant to come to God and relate to Him in our limitations, and enjoy God for His infinite wisdom, power, and holiness. We come to Him by faith in Jesus, our Savior, who forgives our sins and empowers us to learn to overcome sin and enjoy life lived for Him.
May this Christmas find you refreshed in looking to the God beyond and knowing He is with you!
Comments 1
Merry Christmas, Pastor & Grace Family
Thank You for the Study on “The God Beyond Us has become the God Among Us.”
Even as we ponder these marvelous indescribable things, concerning God’s awesome gift of His Son, Mary pondered that which was revealed to her by the Angel and all that which occurred concerning Messiah’s birth along the other angelic appearances to the shepherds.
The sign that was given to the shepherds must have been really perplexing to her that not only that the Messiah would be found as a Baby wrapped in swaddling cloths, but would also be laid in a manager, as God came Near to us, who were afar off on that Holy Night, for which the Angels praised ‘Glory to God in the Highest and on Earth Peace, Good Will toward men.’
Blessings in Christ, & Merry Christmas to All at Grace, The Weavers