Chapter 2

. . . And To Be Known

The Desire of the Lord

GOD IS LOVE

Love is both a noun - "God is love" (1 John 4:16) - and a verb - "For God so loved the world" (John 3:16). As a noun, love in God is an intrinsic characteristic of his nature that motivates his will. It is the essence of his substance. As a verb, love describes His behavior as stated in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. Replace the noun, love, with God and you get: God is patient; God is kind; God does not envy; God does not boast, nor is proud; God behaves appropriately; God thinks of others; God is unprovokable; God thinks the best of others; God rejoices in truth; and finally, God bears all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.

The love of God was demonstrated in Christ Jesus. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). His love has no fear. "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear" (1 John 4:18). It is because God wants to shed his love abroad (Rom.5:5), that the desire came into Him to create a family in mankind. Love as a noun, I believe, has its source from the Father in the Godhead: "The Father loveth the Son" (John 3:35).

GOD OF FAITH

Faith is a noun and its verb is to believe. As a noun, "faith is the substance of things hoped for" (Heb. 11:1). As a verb, faith is expressed in belief: "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Rom. 10:9). God's faith is tied to his love. "Faith which worketh by love" (Gal. 5:6). Faith is the means of love's expression. God's faith is unaffected by anything. "Shall their unbelief make the faith of God of none effect?" (Rom. 3:3). His faith is tied to his Word. He believes and confesses. "We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, 'I believed, and therefore have I spoken'; we also believe, and therefore speak" (2 Cor. 4:13). His faith is constant in faithfulness. "Know therefore that Yahweh thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keeps covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations" (Deut. 7:9). It is God's faith and faithfulness that is His power to create and maintain the creation. As a noun, I believe that God's faith moves through His Holy Spirit in His creative, and miraculous power. "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters" (Gen. 1:2).

GOD OF HOPE

Hope is both a noun and a verb. As a noun, "my hope is in thee [God]" (Psa. 39:7); and as a verb, "In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began" (Tit. 1:2). Hope is linked to faith. "Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost" (Rom. 15:13). And hope is tied to love. "And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad" (Rom. 5:5). Love, faith, and hope are attributes of God that motivate Him. All three exist in the present, but love is linked to the past, and hope to the future. The eternal God who controls time holds the future, wherein there is hope. "0 Yahweh, the Hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed" (Jer. 17:13). As a noun, I believe that hope is the creative element that imagines and designs the creation. This element has its source in the Word of God, or Christ Jesus. "Christ in you the hope of glory" (Col. 1:27). "by the Word of Yahweh were the heavens made" (Psa. 33:6). "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God" (Heb. 11:3). Love is the motivation, faith is the means, hope is the goal. It is through these three attributes of God that the dream of the creation came into being. "And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity" (1 Cor. 13:13).

THE DESIRE

God has always been and always will be. Only He knows how long he has dreamed his dream. No one knows how long He thought through every detail, and every sequence. But in his hope was his joy, and his desire was moved by his love, and the means was his faith. God wanted a family and a creation for that family. He wanted a big family. He wanted a people that He could love and know, but also a people that would love and know Him. To love God is to worship God. "True worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him" (John 4:23). God created people to be worshipers of Him. Worship is intense love that is only to be given to God. For the root of worship is "worthy," and He alone is worthy. This same desire has been imparted by God into our hearts: that is, to be known and understood, not . Sin perverts this desire into the desire to be worshiped, and to misplace our worship on things other than God. Frustration and grief comes to us when we are misunderstood, or our character is not known and trusted. But when we are understood and trusted it is a "tree of life" (Prov. 13:12). The same applies to God. "Do not frustrate the grace of God" (Gal. 2:21). "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God" (Eph. 4:30). God wants his character trusted, and to be understood. I believe that this disappointment in God was expressed to Philip when he asked Jesus to show him the Father. "Jesus saith unto him, 'Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, "Show us the Father?"' (John. 14:9).

His desire is for His own image to live independently from Him, - i.e., us with our free wills - so that He may have a genuine friendship with people who want to know and love Him.. "For now we see through a glass [mirror], darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known" (1 Cor. 13:12). "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Cor. 3:18). We are like Peter Pan's shadow who was given independent life, and like his shadow can get into mischief and become lost. Just being His image doesn't create friendship. Our "mischief" got us lost, too, and made us enemies with God (Rom. 5:10). There has to be an accountability with God. "As in water [reflection] face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man" (Prov. 27:19): and the heart of man to God. Our free will allows for conflict and sparks to fly. "Iron sharpenth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend" (Prov. 27:17). He wanted mankind. Mankind is the first desire of creation. Even though we were the last creatures of his creation, all things created were for His pleasure (Isa. 46:10) and our habitation (Isa. 45:18). He wanted us to enjoy His handiwork with Him. Yet in giving man a free will, God knew the consequence. He sat down first, and counted the cost (Luke 14:28). He knew that our free wills would bring misery and hardship into the world. But He was willing to pay the price. When sin actually came into the creation, then "the Lamb [was] slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev. 13:8).