“The Lord is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth” (Psalms 145:18, ESV).

As a personal God, the Lord seeks to be personal with His people. Psalm 145 praises God for numerous ways that He reaches out to His people, showing them His mercy and love. Take some time to read the entire psalm when you have a chance.

God intimately cares about the people He created. He did not merely create the universe and sit back to watch the show. He intervenes in the lives of His people. He wants us to reach out to Him in faith so that He can respond to us in love and mercy.

In the Old Testament, He revealed Himself to His people through His mighty acts of deliverance and provision. The Exodus from Egypt is a great example of this. So is the restoration of the Jews following the Babylonian exile. The Old Testament records His miraculous acts by which He revealed Himself to His people, along with laws and prophetic messages that revealed His will.

However, He wanted more. He is a personal God. An invisible God performing visible miracles was not sufficient. God wanted to draw a people to Himself personally and intimately.

“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high…” (Hebrews 1:1-3, ESV).

The ancient Jews of Jesus’ time would have thought that God’s highest revelation of Himself was the Law of Moses. The Bible did not offer philosophical explanations about God. It contained stories about what He had done in their lives, laws to explain His will, and prophetic messages announcing what He would do in response to people’s choices. However, in Christ, God went beyond that. God most fully revealed Himself by becoming a man and living among humans as one of us. To know what God is really like, we no longer need abstract concepts. We have a living human God/Man. To know what God is like, we can look to Jesus.

Through Christ, God invites us to share in the relationship that exists between the Persons of the Trinity. The Father and the Son live in an eternal relationship. They were united and working together at creation. Jesus upholds the universe by the Word of His power. The Father has appointed Him heir above all things. By becoming part of a human family, living as part of a human society, and uniting Himself with all mankind, Jesus invites us to join in that relationship with Him. Genesis 1:27 tells us that God created mankind in His image. Philippians 2:7-8 tells us that Jesus assumed human form and likeness. God and man became one in the person of Christ, so that we can experience the full intimacy with God that He originally intended.

Because of Jesus, we can echo the words of Job:

“I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees you” (Job 42:5, ESV).

Maybe we do not physically see Jesus walking around now, but we have a living human illustration of what God is like. We can leap beyond knowing about God (like some distant celebrity or historical figure), because He wants us to know Him personally (like a family member or friend). A personal God wants to be known personally, and He invites us to come to Him by faith.

Copyright © 2019 Michael E. Lynch. All rights reserved.