The Face Of God

The Face of God

The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command. Hebrews 1:3

What a marvelous thing it is that God reveals himself in the Bible and through Christ, the eternal Word. Our verse today tells us that Jesus is the face of God, the visible image of the invisible God. From Genesis to Revelation, God gives us countless snapshots of himself. We can trust in the fact that the Bible is not just a collection of nice stories, not myths that are representations of truth, but “true truth,” as Edith Schaeffer said, so that through it we can know God and come to love and surrender our lives to him. However, we may have to lay down the false notions about God that we have taken from our culture, our education, or movies or art, in which he is often portrayed more as a caricature than as the infinite Creator of the universe.

The comedy Oh, God! portrayed him as a wisecracking old man with a cigar. The 2003 movie Bruce Almighty humanized God as a dignified Higher Power who posed as a janitor. Popular songs describe God as being distant and leaving us to fend for ourselves. From what movies, books, college courses, and songs have you gained ideas about God? Do these represent his loving-kindness and his invitation to people to enter into a new relationship with him through Jesus Christ? How do they line up with what the Bible says about him?

When you read the Bible, especially the Gospels, do so for the purpose of encountering the Lord, not just getting through your day’s reading. Ask him to speak to you, to guide you, and most of all, to open the eyes of your heart to see him as he really is and experience his reassuring love and peace at the core of your being. As you do this, you will not only discover wonderful truths in his Word; you will also rediscover Jesus Christ, the living Word. —CHERI

Thank you, Father, for your desire to reveal yourself to me and to give me abundant grace to enjoy your presence. I praise you that you are always drawing me to yourself and that you have given me the gift of your Word that I might know you more intimately.

The Bible is a perfect picture of God. . . . One of the main reasons we have the Bible is to show us what God is like. It is a revelation of God to us. And the better we know him, the closer our relationship can be with him.

—JOSH MCDOWELL, APOLOGIST, EVANGELIST, AND WRITER