Nouns are interesting things. They are the word or words we give to put a name to a thing. But they are horribly incomplete. For example, the noun house has a completely different meaning to me than it does to you or that it would to someone in another of the world. When you example it, that is true for many if not most nouns. And, while that is fine for many nouns, it is not for the noun, God. You don’t have your god and I have my god, there is one true God and the way we know Him is either the truth or it is wrong.
Jesus was the physically embodiment of God. By knowing Jesus and the decisions, choices, actions he took and the words he chose we collectively see the attributes of the one true God.
But this is far more than just knowing about those things, as we might read in a History book, it is knowing them as windows into the attributes that are God. When we say, as scripture does, that God is Love, through the life of Jesus we see what that means lived out. God is not a static point in time, but a living being and each element/attributes gives us more clarity on the truth of God.
As we participate in our bible study this week, I think it is important to recognize that to study Jesus is to Experience God. Jesus is living, He is alive in us and with us. We have the word of scripture including His words to experience what it was like to sit in that upper room and have Jesus pray over us
But that experience requires more than a passing task oriented approach. It requires prayer. It requires an open heart and mind. It requires an encounter with Jesus, coming into His presence, which always causes us to recognize our own sins and confess and repent of them. It is getting in there with Jesus and loving like He does, and forgiving like we ask for forgiveness and trusting in Him for our daily food and daily life.
My Answers:
3.
Honor, give praise, to recognize and point out the holy nature, to identify and recognize God’s presence.
4.
a.
To know Jesus is to see God, not a man, it is to know the verb not just the noun.
b.
It isn’t something that begins in the future, it is something that started the day my eyes were open to the truth. I know God now, not just after I die. I grow to know God more and Jesus Christ, every day. Eternal life has already begun.
5.
Jesus was in creation, all things were made through Him. He contained the full glory of God, and sat it down to come to earth for us. After conquering death and fulfilling the restoration of mankind, He returned to His place in the throne room of heaven. He is the radiance of God’s glory (Shekinah)
The Notes are Good 