"Trust in Him at all times, you people; pour out your heart before Him; God is our refuge." ~Psalm 9:2
So how exactly do we get closer to God? How can we ever have a relationship with an invisible God? We must spend time with Him! We must do as it says in the above verse... we must pour out our heart to Him. We really have to get serious about literally beholding Him in everything we do, in prayer (conversing with Him about everything), in worship (reading our Bible and learning about who He is), and in praise (speaking and singing to thank Him for all the wonderful things He does).
The word behold is a very interesting word. It literally means: to observe, to contemplate, to gaze at. The Greek definition means: to visit, to see. Now I don't know about you, but I sure want to visit with God as much as possible!
In the following verse, King David (the writer of the book of Psalms) is contemplating why God would care so much about humanity that He would want to visit us.
“What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?” ~Psalm 8:4
Beholding Him we become like Him.
The following verse explains how this phenomenon works.
"But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord." ~ 2 Corinthians 3:18
In other words, the more time we spend with Him in the Bible (visiting with Him), and in prayer (talking with Him), the closer we get and the more we become like Him. All we need to do is reach out to Him with the one little drop of faith that we were all born with and He will do the rest, just look at Him and He will lead us into all truth. According to the Holy Bible there is but one way to develop the faith that is needed to engage God, and that is by hearing/reading the word of God.
"So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." ~ Romans 10:17
I think I need more faith…
If you really want more faith, you can easily obtain it by hearing (or reading) the written word of God. The secret to success is that we must jump, head first, into that Bible every single morning. And I happen to think the best place to start this journey is in the book of John. Some people say to start at Mathew, the first book of the New Testament, but I just feel that John lays it out in the most easy to understand way. Either way, the Gospels (the first four books of the New Testament) are the best place to meet Jesus/God in the flesh.
The first verse of the book of John makes this point very clear… (that the Bible is our source of faith), when John says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” ~John 1:1
By virtue of this verse we see that Jesus is the speaker, the Word of God. He is the one who literally authored the words in the Bible... the one who literally spoke everything into existence.
“By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the hosts of them by the breath of His mouth." ~Psalm 33:6
Now this really blows my mind. God is saying that Jesus is the Word. That tells me there must be some mighty big, supernatural power in them there words!
I want that kind of empowerment. If God tells me I can gain faith through the power in His words, you can bet I'm gonna feast on that Bible every chance I get.
“But he answered and said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” ~Matthew 4:4
Now that you’re starting to learn how to get closer to God…
Join us next week for Part 2 as we continue to delve into this question, or sign up below for an email reminder.
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Hello, The Wycliffe Bible puts it this way:
“1 In the beginning was the word, and the word was at God, and God was the word. [In the beginning was the word, that is, God’s Son, and the word was at God, and God was the word.]
2 This was in the beginning at God.
3 All things were made by him, and without him was made nothing [nought], that thing that was made.
4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men;”
I think that is a better view of it, don’t you?
In my posts I hyperlink a few words so when you touch them you’ll go to another page with an explanation or Hebrew/Greek definition. In the case of this article the word I hyperlinked was, “word”. Interestingly enough this explanation reads…
Word – Whenever you see a noun capitalised in the NKJV, it’s referring to Jesus. This is one of the many reasons I uses the New King James Version of the Bible.
Word of God – “For the word of God is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword……and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12
This is so important for people to understand so they can clearly identity the author of the entire Bible.
Additionally, the word used in the Greek is Logos, which means word, thought, speech.
In the New Testament, logos is used to refer to the constant, written word, which is recorded in the Bible. How incredible it is that we human beings can have God’s written word in our hands…the wisdom of all eternity printed in a book for us.
God loves us so much.
Thanks for your input. I wish everyone studied as hard as you clearly are.
Linda ~