Sometimes it may seem that God is a big blank face in the sky and we can paint any face on him that we like according to our culture, according to our experiences, according to popular opinion, according to our personal opinion. This makes the opinions of what God looks like as numerous as we are because each one of us decorates God differently in our mind. Most of us wouldn’t argue about the existence of God, unless we were atheists. Acknowledging the existence of God or a “Higher Power” is one thing, knowing what God is like is another. The problem with this is that since no one has ever seen God how do we know who is right in their description of Him?
If God exists inside of us, in our heads and imaginations only, then how we each decorate Him is a personal matter. He becomes nothing more then an idol, a wooden doll that we each cut and shape however it pleases us. We can give him a big happy face with a cheesy grin or we can give him a big scowling face, that glares. Whatever makes us happy. He becomes our puppet. We can even make him dance if we like or pound him against somebody else’s custom designer God to see who wins like we use to do as kids as we played with GI Joe dolls. That is about the extent of God’s power when he only exists inside us as an idea or theory. He is as limited as our own abilities, imaginations and resources. He only moves when we move him. He is a dead God. A dead imaginary doll that we carry around in our heads and only nods like a bobble head figurine doll as we go about our daily business.
But if our God is a living God, then he must exist apart from us. He must have a life apart from us. He must have the ability to move on his own according to his own will. He must have his own thoughts. His own likes and dislike. His own emotions. His own life that is separate from ours. If we die, He still lives because He exists outside us and apart from us. We don’t define him, he defines himself.
God can be known. He is not an idea, he is a person and we were created in His image, according to His will for his purposes. If we are to know Him, we must look up outside of our selves and not down at the small cute pet God we hold in our hands or in our heads. We must accept him as he reveals Himself to be to us, even if we don’t initially like Him, agree with Him or understand Him. We cannot redefine him or give him a makeover according to what we ourselves think he should be like. We must wrestle with the reality of Him as he reveals himself to be to us through his written word and living word, Jesus Christ, the exact image of God. (John 14:9, Col. 1:15, 2 Cor. 4:4) God exists. He already is. Any attempt for us to change him, redefine him and limit him is ignorance and denial on our part of him. It is our rejection of the real living God, for the creation of our imaginations.
Do you want to know what God the Father is like? Jesus both asks and answers. I alone, am the only person who can tell you what God the Father is like because I alone am the only person who has seen Him. (John 1:1, 18, John 3:11-13, 31-43) I have been with the Father since the beginning of eternity. (John 1:1, John 8:56-59, John 17:5,24) I was sent by God the Father to reveal him to you so you could know Him as I know Him. (John 17:6-8) No one knows or has seen the Father except through me and who I reveals Him to. (John 17:25-26, Luke 10:22).
If you want to know God, the Father we must first look to Jesus. What does Jesus Himself say about God the Father and what He is like and what His feelings are toward us? It is with these questions and this frame of mind that we will begin to look at 1 John 1:5. This is the message that Jesus taught the apostles about God the Father and what God is like. This is the message that they are now teaching us. This message is absolutely foundational to our faith and our understanding of God and his nature.
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. – 1 John 1:5
