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Jesus said to him, "Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how do you say, 'Show us the Father'?"
(John 14:9)
Living with no reference to God or faith in Him, we act as if we are the center of our world. Everything revolves around us, and as far as we are concerned everything is about us. We are happy when things go well but get upset when they do not; some of us even throw fits in order to get our way. Whether or not we make our desires and needs known, we expect them to be met. Often, how we make our desires known is not healthy, or done in a way that pleases God or others. Much of what we identify as our desires and needs are not actually good for us, possibly keeping us from seeking God or being interested in Him. Since we do not know God, we cannot make Him known. Our focus is self-centered. We love ourselves, have faith in ourselves, and when we get a chance, we talk about ourselves. Though we may not notice it, our primary interest is to make ourselves known. This may occur in various ways, but at the root, it is about us. We want to make a name for ourselves. Many of us stay within our circle of friends and family, though some of us want the world's affection. We want people to know about our achievements, career, family, or possessions. Maybe we are intentional working to build what we hope will be a legacy of fame and fortune. Perhaps we say that we are working to give our family a better life. Some of us tend to talk about our pains, sorrows, and sufferings. However we approach it, in the end, we are trying to make ourselves known. Because we are self-focused, we are oblivious to the fact that God wants to reveal Himself to us and then through us.
The first step in coming to know God's self-revealing nature includes exploring His existence, in which He begins to make Himself known to us. A desire to know if there is a God and if so, what He is like is birthed in our heart and mind. Growth, which we perceive as our searching for God, is really God drawing us to Himself. Faith slowly takes shape as we seek answers and ask questions in these early stages, learning to believe the truth about God as His story is told (Romans 10:17). If someone asks what God has revealed about Himself, we are pretty clueless. We do not grasp His self-revelation, yet as we continue to draw near to Him (James 4:8a), a knowledge and love for Him begins to take root (II Peter 3:18).
Being self-focused, as we learn about God we naturally think about ourselves. It seems like self-examination, but it is actually the Holy Spirit showing us things about ourselves about which we are blind. Then we start to recognize some of the sin and selfishness. Pain and confusion may surface as we recognize and find God dealing with our fallen nature, especially if we do not believe that we and all of humanity are fallen. Yet, this too is part of God's self-revelation. What we are discovering, though we may not understand it, is that God is holy and we are not; that we cannot transform ourselves or deliver ourselves from corruption; that we are in desperate need of a Savior. As we continue to seek God, His life transforming power continues working in us, such that we embrace the truth of what He has revealed about sin and death (Romans 5:12; Romans 6:16-23; Romans 7:13), and our need for redemption (John 8:2; Romans 8:2; Titus 2:14). By the grace of God we hear and believe the good news of Christ (Matthew 20:28; John 1:29; John 6:51; Romans 5:6; I Corinthians 1:30). Perhaps we go to the altar in a church service. Maybe someone walks with us as we call out to God and acknowledge Christ. Some of us reach the end of ourselves and cry out to the God about whom we have been learning. God is revealing Himself and drawing us through Christ. In a sense, we feel like we have found God at the point when we are reborn in the Holy Spirit (John 3:3-8; John 5:24; I Peter 1:3). But it is actually God who has made salvation possible and real for us. He revealed what He wants us to know about Him, and calls us to believe and trust Him. We cannot boast of figuring it out on our own, nor have we done anything to force God to act (Ephesians 2:8-9). Rather, God revealed His plans, and like Abraham we believe Him, which He credits to us as righteousness (Genesis 15:6). We now know that we have no righteousness of our own, but realize that Christ has become for us righteousness (II Corinthians 5:21), Christ himself being the breastplate of God's armor that we now wear (Ephesians 6:14). We step onto the path of true self-realization, which is having Christ abide in us, the mystery of our faith (Colossians 1:27). Faith in Christ is really taking root now.
Now that we grasp what God has revealed about Himself, we see that He sets us apart for Himself (John 17:17; Acts 26:18; Romans 6:22; I Corinthians 6:11). Our life is no longer our own, for we have been bought with a price (I Corinthians 6:20; I Corinthians 7:23). Sadly, some depart at this point, turning away from God in order to live for themselves once again. The prayer they prayed for salvation only provided some temporary relief or a moment of excited hope rather than beginning in them true life transformation that comes as we focus on God and trust Him to work in and through us. Those of us who grow in faith, mark the point of our salvation as the time our focus and priorities began to change as we started taking God at His word. Trusting Him brings about changes in us that enable us to know and love Him more. We are set apart by God when we first believe Him, but as we mature God reveals that we are to be completely set apart for His purposes in all areas of life (I Thessalonians 4:3-7; 5:23). Salvation is God setting us apart from sin and death, the world and our old way of life, while sanctification is our being set apart to God. Sanctification, in its fullest sense is an ongoing process in which the Holy Spirit continues to reveal both the Father and the Son too us, thereby deepening our faith in God. As we grow in our knowledge and love of God, we learn more about the work and power of the Holy Spirit that builds up Christ's disciples (Galatians 5:22-24; I Corinthians 12:7-11). Through the Spirit and the Church, we discover a place to serve God and His kingdom. He did not save us to be a trophy on a shelf, but that in reconciling us to Him we would be equipped to lovingly serve His Church, the body of Christ (Romans 12:5; Ephesians 4:11-12). There comes a point when we hunger for God to do a deeper work within us. Our deepest desire has become to be used by God in whatever ways He may choose, so that He may be glorified and His greatness noticed by others (Matthew 5:14-16). We may not yet recognize that God is inviting us to draw even closer to Him (Psalm 37:4). He is revealing Himself to our heart in such a way that we hunger to know Him even more. We grasp what He has revealed about Himself so that we are able to love Him more than anyone else we love, even more than our own life (Luke 14:26-27). This point of complete surrender, which some call entire sanctification, is the outflow of God having revealed Himself in and to us. We no longer care for the things of this world and are not interested in satisfying the lusts of our flesh and eyes (Genesis 3:6; I John 2:16), rather, we delight in the Lord. We are indeed set apart by God and to God. It is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us, for the life we now live, we live for Christ who loved us and gave himself up for us (Galatians 2:20).
As we continue to mature in the saving and sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, God reminds us that His plan for our life is for us to go and make disciples (Matthew 28:18-20). When He created humanity He commanded us to reproduce (Genesis 1:28), as a result of His saving and sanctifying work in us we are to be fruitful and multiple as we share the story of God by which He reveals Himself to others through us. The who and how of making disciples varies from person to person. Some of us disciple friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, and anyone else whom the Lord has in our daily life. Others may be called to a different place where we serve His interests with people who are new to us, which may be in our own country, across a border, or even across an ocean. The assignment might be short term or a lifetime call. Still others may equip a church by serving in leadership or preparing new leaders. However God leads us, we are all called to go and make disciples. Making disciples is part of God's plan for our life as a Christian. It is important for us to remember that we came to faith as a disciple, learning about God by Him working through others. Would we not eventually desire to help someone else come to faith in God through Christ? We may resist at first, but the sanctifying work of the Spirit in us requires that we respond by either agreeing with God and going, or denying God and drawing back from Him. If we are a mature Christian whose faith is in Christ, then we respond by going. Christ commissioned his disciples to make more disciples on his behalf, thus we too are commissioned to make God known to others as we fully trust the God whom we proclaim.
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