Yesterday as we got started on our study of knowing God, we saw how crucial it is that we seek to know God and to know accurately, as best we can, about his revealed character. Today we're looking into the idea of how well can we know this most high God.

The thought of "What is God like?" is questioned all the time. However as we seek after God through Scripture and experience, our minds are still limited to describing things by means of things that have seen or experienced here on earth, but God is not from this world. In describing God, it's safe to say that God isn't like anything or anyone we know here on earth.

Mostly when we learn new things we start with a foundation of something that we are familiar with and then bridge over into new territory. In understanding God it requires the mind to crash straight from the familiar into the totally unfamiliar. Our minds don't do that. Even the most imaginative mind is unable to create something out of nothing. The world of mythology and superstition as weird and imaginative as some of their ideas are, all find their origins and content in things we already know but they just stretch their boundaries or mix two or more forms to create something "new". Whatever the case, they are already like something we already know.

When the Spirit shows us something that goes beyond the field of knowledge, He tells us that it is "like" something that we already know. The phrasing in the Bible is always very careful to stress the "like". I'm sure a lot of the images in the Bible have very little in common with the things that it describes as being "like" God. But of the things that we do know, the Spirit uses the things that have the closest resemblance to the things that are being described. We only have words and ways of explaining things that we fully know and understand. It's a bit like in the Old Testament when the Israelites are in the wilderness and God provides them with bread from heaven. Even the use of the word bread is used quite loosely because it is the closest comparable thing that we can think of. The Israelites called this bread "Manna".

Although this "Manna" was totally foreign to them you can see that it is described in relation to things they were familiar with – like coriander seed, tasted like wafers made with honey. The name of "Manna" which they gave it simply means, "What is it?"

The prophet Ezekiel saw Heaven opened and saw visions of God. He too did his best to describe what he saw, but when trying to describe the glory of our most high God, his attempts to liken it to worldly things make his description sound so vague. Let's look at it now in Ezekiel

Ezekiel 1:26-28 (NIV)

This is just a small section of Ezekiel's vision but in these three verses there are seven instances where he has to use an earthly "likeness" to describe what he is seeing. After what seems to already be a pretty vague description, Ezekiel concludes by saying "This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord". You can't get much more vague than to describe something as the "appearance of the likeness" of something. I'm sure if I got everyone here to draw a picture of the glory of God based on this description, we'd get some very differing and very interesting pictures. This is our God. So much higher than we can ever think or imagine. If we were able to fully grasp the fullness of God with our limited minds, then God wouldn't really be God. He'd just be a combination of all the best things that we can think of from a worldly perspective. If God were so limited as to be clearly defined and understood by human minds then he wouldn't be big enough or powerful enough to have done or to do the things that the Bible tells us about.

When we try to imagine or define God we naturally base our thoughts around things which are not like God. Even when we think of God based upon the highest worldly examples we've ever seen, we think of God at a level well below His true self. If we insist to imagine God, we end up in idolatry, creating a God that is an amalgamation of all the best worldly (created) examples we know.

Nicholas of Cusa had this to say of God, "The intellect knows it is ignorant of You because it knows You cannot be known, unless the unknowable could be known, and the invisible beheld and the inaccessible attained."

If God is incomprehensible and unapproachable as Paul says, how can we Christians satisfy our longing after Him? Job's answer from Job 22:21 is, "Now acquaint yourself with Him, and be at peace". How is it that we can acquaint ourselves with the one who is beyond all the straining efforts of the heart and mind?

1 Corinthians 2:11-12 (NIV)

As Paul writes in first Corinthians as shown above, God can only be known as the Holy Spirit discloses the character of God to the individual believer. In verse 14 of this passage, Paul goes on to write of how the disclosure of the nature of God to an unbeliever would only be received as foolishness. Without the spirit of God working within someone, the things of God cannot be understood or appreciated.

The deep desire to know what cannot be known and comprehend the incomprehensible comes from the image of God that has been set into the creation of mankind. It's kind of like when you go away from home for a while. When I went to Texas for a year, I loved it but it was also good to get back to Australia because that is home. That's where I belong. In God's creation of man, it was His good intention that man be in close personal relationship with God as their creator. Because we are His creation, despite our separation from the fall, our souls long to return to be united with our creator. Our bodies desire to be where they belong. This search for belonging is prominent and evident in everyone's life. The longing is felt by all and the desire for fulfilment is felt by all, but not all who search find their fulfilment because we live in a world that has so many options promising fulfilment that our lives true fulfilment in Christ is often obscured.

There is some really good news in what I just said. Everyone is seeking a fulfilment that they know cannot be found within themselves. It is that desire that has fuelled the creation of so many religions and "spiritual movements". We are often so timid, often so embarrassed to share the gospel with anyone. We have just stated that everyone is seeking their lives true meaning, yet we who hold the answers that they need, sit back and allow them to frustrate themselves in empty pursuits.

Have you ever had a Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness come to your door? If so, were they timid in sharing what they believed? Did they have an answer to your questions? You bet they did. They are people who believe so strongly in their religion that they want to make it known. Their beliefs are important enough to them that they know extremely well what it is they believe.

There was a pastor in America who said, "There are millions of people dying and going to hell and you all don't give a damn". The pastor then went on to say, "And the sad part is that you care more that I said 'damn' than you care about the fact that people are dying and going to hell".

2 Timothy 1:7-8 (NIV)

Frederick W. Faber wrote this of the pursuit of knowing God:

John M. Watkins in his book titled "The cloud of unknowing" wrote;

"In approaching God the seeker discovers that the divine being dwells in obscurity, hidden behind a cloud of unknowing. Nevertheless he should not be discouraged but set his will with a naked intent unto God. This cloud is between the believer and God so that he may never see God clearly by the light of understanding or feel Him in the emotions. But by the mercy of God faith can break through into His presence if the seeker just believes the word and presses on."

It's important that we love God as He is within Himself and not how we imagine or picture Him to be. So what is God like within Himself? That's a question very difficult, if at all possible to answer correctly this side of heaven. The other question is, "What has God disclosed about Himself that we can understand?" To this question there is a full and satisfying answer. While there is much about God that we can never understand, by His love He has disclosed much about His glorious character in the Scripture. These are the attributes of God that we'll be studying throughout summer. It is the truths that God has already disclosed about Himself that we'll be studying, seeking and embracing as we grow in Him as we desire to truly know our God.