Not a Conception, but a Revelation

The last thing that anyone needs to trust in is one's own conception of God.

We need to know that God, beyond our understanding, takes up every inch of space, time, force, and matter.

I do not want to believe in a God who is dependent on my moods, feelings, thought, or actions.

That is not a god at all, but rather a deification of ourselves.

There is no hope in our own efforts, or why would anyone need to a Twelve Step program? Why would people be seeking out psychology assistance or self-help groups?

The pernicious, evil aspect of Alcoholics Anonymous is rising up stronger than ever before, and it all falls back on this broken, bankrupted fraud that I can believe in a God of my own understanding.

God is not of our understanding, at all.

God is beyond our understanding.

How God can hold the universe together, step outside of time and space, and punish our sins forever in the body of His Son: all of this escapes man's capacity to understand.

"O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" (Romans 11: 33)

Either we believe Him, or we don't.

We are not going to believe by thinking about Him. We believe as we hear more and more of the Word of Christ:

"So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." (Romans 10: 17)

A more accurate translation reads:

"Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ." (NIV)

We need to see more of Jesus, and we are not going to see more of Him if we are left to our own devices, believing in some conception of God who may or may not be there for us.

No: the truth of who He is is made manifest for us in His Word.

Not a conception, but a Revelation, and this Revelation is found in the Bible:

"25Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: 26Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? 27And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." (Luke 24: 25-27)