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God not only provides natural revelation of Himself, but He further reveals Himself to believers through the Holy Spirit. We cannot learn the deep things of God – His divine nature, attributes and wisdom– on our own, indeed we need the help of the Spirit to enlighten us. The Holy Spirit, shares with us God’s divine wisdom and grace and allows us to see the wondrous love of God. Without the light of God’s spirit within us we are left in the dark. How can we be more aware of the Holy Spirit in our lives so we can better know our loving God? The spirit guides us through scripture, through circumstance, through relationship with other believers, and through prayer. Allow the spirit to pour faith into you and move you to relationship with God and others.

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The God who made the world and everything in it, this Master of sky and land, doesn’t live in custom-made shrines or need the human race to run errands for him, as if he couldn’t take care of himself. He makes the creatures; the creatures don’t make him. Starting from scratch, he made the entire human race and made the earth hospitable, with plenty of time and space for living so we could seek after God, and not just grope around in the dark but actually find him. He doesn’t play hide-and-seek with us. He’s not remote; he’s near. We live and move in him, can’t get away from him! One of your poets said it well: ‘We’re the God-created.’ Well, if we are the God-created, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to think we could hire a sculptor to chisel a god out of stone for us, does it?

[Acts 17:28  The Message]

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The glory and power and divinity of God are clearly seen by the beauty of what He created.  Who has not viewed beautiful blue skies, starry nights, colorful sunsets, or powerful stormy skies and not marveled at the glorious work of God? God signed creation for all mankind to see and revealed himself in the heavens.  We do not worship an unknown God – we worship a wise, powerful and creative being who is trustworthy and with us. Take time to remember God every time you look toward the sky and remember that He is with us at all times.

The heavens are telling the glory of God; they are a marvelous display of his craftsmanship. Day and night they keep on telling about God. Without a sound or word, silent in the skies, their message reaches out to all the world. The sun lives in the heavens where God placed it. [Psalm 19:1-4 The Living Bible]

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God instilled an understanding of what is right and wrong in the hearts of all people – even those who do not yet know God have a sense of the natural law, a sense of what is right or wrong. This natural law is evidenced in man’s conscience and reasoning.  Even those who do not accept God’s written law can live lives that do what the law requires – they can love others, know not to steal, be truthful.  The danger in relying only on our own conscience, which is knowledge shared with oneself, is that sometimes the verdict we come to on our own is not the same as what God would say! We are blessed to have God’s revealed law available to us so we might live our lives as God intended.  But even in knowing the law we fall short of God’s standards – we sin.  Our salvation is ultimately won by the transformation we make in our life when we understand that Christ died to save us.  No matter what we think about our own behavior, God will impartially judge us all by how we have lived our life and only His grace will be able to ultimately save us.

When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them  on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all. [Romans 2:14-16  NIV]

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God reveals himself to all of mankind through His creation.  Even though God is invisible, His very existence can be seen in the beauty and the “light of nature” of creation itself.   Unfortunately, sometimes people outright reject God or allow sin to obscure Him in order to pursue sinful hearts and earthly desires.  This separates us from God and we fall into lives of corruption, idolatry, and sinfulness.   We know better – we are without excuse!  Where in our own lives are we trading away or trivializing the glory of God and pursuing non-Godly ends?

But God’s angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust and wrongdoing and lying accumulate, as people try to put a shroud over truth. But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse. What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn’t treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand.  [Romans 1:18-23  The Message]

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Jesus prayed for us – those who have come to know Him through His disciples and their witness – prayed that we would all be one in Him and with one another.  Jesus shares the divine glory God gave to Him with His disciples and thereby allows us, as disciples of Christ, to share in divine glory through Him. Through His grace we receive glory! What a gift. We are called in this prayer, as His disciples, to be a testimony to Jesus and his love to a lost world. We are called to be one with Jesus, and in being one with Him to be united with His Father and with other believers — all through our union with Jesus.  He fills each of us with His love and presence while we live with Him here on earth. We are called to provide living proof of God’s mercy, love and truth – to be a living testimony of God’s love—so that all may know this love.  This is the gracious God we are called to give glory to and to fully enjoy forever.

I’m praying not only for them but also for those who will believe in me because of them and their witness about me.  The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind—just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, so they might be one heart and mind with us. Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me. The same glory you gave me, I gave them, so they’ll be as unified and together as we are—I in them and you in me. Then they’ll be mature in this oneness, and give the godless world evidence that you’ve sent me and loved them in the same way you’ve loved me. Father, I want those you gave me to be with me, right where I am, so they can see my glory, the splendor you gave me, having loved me long before there ever was a world. Righteous Father, the world has never known you, but I have known you, and these disciples know that you sent me on this mission. I have made your very being known to them— who you are and what you do—and continue to make it known, so that your love for me might be in them exactly as I am in them. [John 17:21-24 (The Message)]

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God does not intend for us to figure out this world on our own. He is a God who is available — a God who goes beside us and guides us through the joys and sorrows we find in life. As theologist Thomas Manton states, “In our way to heaven, we need not only a rule and path, but a guide.  The rule is the law of God; but the guide is the Spirit of God.”  With God as our travel companion through life we experience the glory of God.  God teaches us how to glorify him so that we can enjoy him – now and in Heaven and always.

You will keep on guiding me all my life with your wisdom and counsel, and afterwards receive me into the glories of heaven!   Whom have I in heaven but you? And I desire no one on earth as much as you! My health fails; my spirits droop, yet God remains! He is the strength of my heart; he is mine forever!

But those refusing to worship God will perish, for he destroys those serving other gods.  But as for me, I get as close to him as I can! I have chosen him, and I will tell everyone about the wonderful ways he rescues me.  Psalm 73:24-28 [The Living Bible]

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