If you hadn’t yet read my article from last week, I would suggest that you stop now and go back and read it. It’s a lead up to what’s in this article.
In my own journey of progressive revelation, I went from being a little kid to where it seemed that God revealed himself as a Santa Claus to being an adolescent/young adult who perceived God as one who wanted to be worshipped above all. I then entered my middle adult years with a God who revealed himself (or so I thought) as one who wanted my time, talent, and treasure more than anything.
Looking back on the years of that progressive journey, I see two main things that motivated my relationship with God – fear and performance. My desire to be good, to read the Bible, to tithe, to go to church weekly, etc., was largely rooted in a fear that God would be disappointed and angry with me. And in his wrath, I feared that God might punish me in someway. I wanted to avoid that, so I tried my best to be my best.
During those early adult years, my awareness of the love of God was somewhat limited. I believed how much he loved me was largely dependent on me. If I did what God wanted me to do, he would love and bless me. If I didn’t, well, you probably know the rest. Again, it was performance driven by fear.
That all began to change about ten years ago during the midst of something like a crisis of faith. Like many other churches before, ours went through a split that led to a lot of bitter heartaches, the loss of a minister, the loss of members, the loss of the building, and ultimately, the loss of the church itself. As a result, I began asking God a lot of serious questions about the nature and purpose of the church. In my search for answers, I ended up being led in directions I never intended to go.
God took my desire to understand what he intended the church to be and do and took me far beyond that. In fact, what he did was begin revealing things about himself that I never saw or understood before. He took the revelation of himself that had been slowly progressing throughout my first 40+ years and put it into hyperdrive. What I have learned about God since then has been nothing short of incredible.
I began to see God’s grace in ways I had never known before. In my earlier limited understanding of God’s love, I saw Jesus as the good guy who was pleased with me but I saw the Father as someone who had to be pleased. Jesus was the one who loved me, died for me, and lived for me. He was the one who had intervened on my behalf so that God’s wrath would be satisfied. I was truly appreciative of what Jesus had done because I understood that to be the only means by which God could love me.
How wrong I had been. What God began to reveal to me was that he had always loved me, even in my worst moments. In fact, he revealed that he is love, that’s that is the very essence of his nature. And because he loved me, I could be free of the merry-go-round of performance and fear.
In his grace, he showed me things I had never really noticed before, or at least had never deeply sunk in. He wasn’t keeping a record of my wrongs. He wasn’t counting my sins against me. In fact, he was remembering them no more. The proof – he loved me so much that he gave me his one and only son so that I may have life in him.
Even more, he has promised to never leave me nor forsake me. He’s given me his Holy Spirit so that he is with me everywhere I go and in everything I do. And because I am in Christ and Christ is in me, he is not condemning me. The reality of these truths has brought peace between God and me, though God was never my enemy in the first place. I was just now waking up to that astounding truth. And it was freeing.
It was so freeing, in fact, that it brought about the biggest change of all in my life. The fear of being punished by a disappointed and angry God began to melt away, as did the need to perform in order to keep him happy. God showed me there was no need for it anymore. In truth, there never had been, though it may have served a purpose in my younger days, perhaps keeping me in check from doing some really stupid and harmful things.
I also began to understand parts of the Bible either for the first time or in ways I never had previously. And one of those passages was 1 John 4:18 – “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” Now that God had opened my eyes to the truth of his perfect love, I no longer feared being punished by him. How could I fear the one who loves me as deeply and completely and passionately as he does? God was not out to punish me; he was out to restore me. He was constantly pursuing me, loving me, and working to set things right where sin had done wrong. It’s as if God was saying to me, “I make everything new (Revelation 21:5)!” He has certainly made me new.
And that is my personal story of progressive revelation. I am confident, however, that my story is not even close to being completely written. For as long as I am in this body and seeking after him, I am certain that God will reveal even more about himself.
I am also certain that my story is not alone. I believe that everyone who has been a Christian for some time has a similar story as mine – one in which the way they understand God is not the same today as it was when they were a much younger Christian.
I also believe the progressive revelation we experience in our personal lives mirrors the progressive revelation we find in the Bible. Just as the way we perceive things as a child changes as we grow older and become wiser with experience and maturity, I see the same thing in the story of humanity as recorded in the Bible. You can see the gradual change in the way ancient Israel perceived God in their younger days from the way they perceived him as they grew and matured. What they understood about God progressively changed as God revealed more about himself as they grew and matured. Their growing maturity enabled them to understand more about God, just as we can understand more about our parents as we mature to adulthood. It’s like Paul said of himself, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known (1 Corinthians 13:11-12).”
That day of knowing fully still awaits us. But that doesn’t mean we can’t know more of God right now while we’re still here on earth. Continue to seek after him. He is a Father of absolute love and grace. He will reveal what you are capable of absorbing. And especially keep your eyes on Jesus. Remember that he and the Father are one; that if you’ve seen him, you’ve seen the Father. Everything the Father wanted to reveal to us is in Jesus. Go to him with open eyes and an open heart. You’ll be in for the ride of your life.
Essential Grace 