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I want to say it was either given to me as a gift before my family moved from Germany when I graduated High School, for my 18th birthday, or a Christmas gift that year. The gift was a paperback copy of Oswald Chambers’ devotional “My Utmost For His Highest.” This devotional contains a personal reflection by Chambers on a Bible verse for each day of the year. Before having the paperback copy I read it on their website utmost.org. One of the many benefits of the paperback copy is highlighting passages has become easy. When I flipped through it not too long ago November 18th’s entry caught my attention. November 18th’s verse was John 8:36 which reads “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
You can read the entirety of the passage on your own via the link provided. 18th of November Utmost.org What Chambers focused on was an observed behavior he noticed in Christians. The word “Son” is replaced with the word “Savior” in their minds. A thing that is easy to do because the action is to be saved from sin but we often forget that it comes with the requirement of a personal relationship with God through Christ.
The freedom that is given comes by the Son and it is purely because of Him that salvation is made available. Chambers addresses how our spirit soaks up what is in the “spiritual waters” around us. Once we taste a little bit of knowing God personally our soul’s deep hunger and desire for Him shall be awakened once more if it has been dormant. This hunger comes from our desire to have back what we had in the Garden of Eden before humanity lost it by the fall into sin which separated us from God.
Because Jesus Christ has become an embodiment of that personhood we can easily relate to God through Him psychologically. By focusing on the “Son” we find it is possible to have it back. And thus we return again and again in our times of prayer and Bible study.
Most every Christian has heard that prayer is important in their life, but it is more than just a way to ask our Father in Heaven for things.
It is how we spend time in communion with Him. When we invite Him to spend time abiding with us Holy Spirit takes up the space in response to our genuine need for closeness. The practice requires dedication but the results of making time for Him show themselves in us having a bond that goes beyond just going to church on Sundays, special services, and attending Bible Study with others. When we spend time with someone we begin to know them. This brings us back to “The Personhood of the Son,” today’s title.
Specifics in life help us to understand things by narrowing down a generic idea to something with defined details. I could say paint me a picture of a dog and you might draw a creature with 4 legs, a tail, a snout, a bit of color, and a nice set of teeth. But if I say draw a German Sheppard we immediately think of the black and brown pattern that exists along with the slouching back hips and perked up ears. As with my quick example about a creature on this earth God has never allowed Himself to remain obscure. He is complex beyond our ability to fully understand but has never let us be without a clear image of who He is.
His names are detailed and reveal things about Him and His character. In early Genesis, the name used for Him is Yahweh Elohim. This means Lord Eternal. Elohim means a being of power and strength a word that is used to define both God and false gods translated into most English Bibles as lord or God depending on context and circumstance. Yahweh means the “One who Is” revealing the eternal nature of God. This is also the same name that was given to Moses when he asked what name to give the Israelites when they asked what is the name of their God. In most English bibles this will either be translated as the phrase LORD God with the word lord capitalized in each letter or simply as lord with all the letters capitalized.
I am not a scholar of Hebrew and there is the possibility that I have missed some things. But my point is that each name of God reveals more about His personhood and character. The names of God and what it reveals about Him is a nice study to do, however. Tony Evans has a video series that I went through with my men’s group in church a few years ago. I recommend it here is the link to the book that was turned into the series.
“The Power of God’s Names” by Tony Evans
Metatron on YouTube Analyses the Names of God
(I am not sponsored to promote his work. I just want to help others find good resources to grow their faith and biblical understanding.)
We have to understand that the sheer magnificence of God is something impossible for us to grasp completely. And when we take into consideration that He created everything in the universe, known and unknown to us, the fact becomes all too apparent of how much more there is to Him. This is one of the reasons why a study of His many names in scripture will be quite a revealing undertaking.
When Christ came it enabled us to have a human connection with God in our minds. We shouldn’t neglect the other parts of the Trinity but Jesus being both God and Man in one being makes it easier to connect with God once more. Think of Him as sort of a spiritual stepping stone for restoration. Once we know Him, Jesus, we are able to branch out and know the other elements of our God. Specifically, the things we cannot easily see.
This restored relationship enables us to be filled with the power of God. We are freed from sins and empowered to overcome them when the temptation to relapse comes back. This power is not derived from the idea of an arbitrary god who is out of reach and wants us to do good. But rather it is generated from the knowledge that we have someone right here with us who can relate to the struggle we have. What’s more the truth that they have overcome this and will be with us so we too can overcome it is why Christians continue to make daily efforts to be better than yesterday.
Our endurance comes from the belief that we can and will become better than who we were before. The process of being made holy and in the image of God’s nature will take a lifetime but we know it will be a lifetime well spent.
As we spend each day drawing closer to Him, he draws us deeper and changes our beings to be more in accordance with His ways and thoughts. The end result shall be revealed when we get to heaven and it will be a surprise to see how much happened in such a short amount of time. We’ll be like silver that has gone from ore with impurities into a beautiful sheen that can reflect the image of our Lord’s magnificence.
Power exists in many forms. Power can be physical, physical but suppressed, physical and manifested, physical and active, physical and inactive, and there are most likely some more than I can list off here. Spiritually it is the same way.
God will manifest his power in one of two broad categories visible and invisible. The visible forms are the obvious miracles of healing, provisions, events where the impossible comes to pass, times when things line up just a bit too perfectly for man to have pulled it off, and many other things of that nature. But the invisible ones are harder to notice since they take place inside of a person’s heart which bears no outward physical signs other than how they behave.
My question for you to ponder as I sign off today is; why has our broader society seemingly placed emphasis on the visible over the invisible and made one have more importance than the other?