How We Know God

We know someone by what they do, not by what they say about themselves. If someone came up to you and told you that they were kind, compassionate, responsible, punctual, and loving, but they never showed up on time or did their work or treated you respectfully, you wouldn’t believe a word they said about themselves. You would say they were irresponsible, lazy, and just plain mean. We know people by their actions.

The same is true for God. The Jews didn’t worship God because of what he said about himself. They worshiped him because of what he had done. He was the God who created the world and saw that it was good. He was the God who, when sin had contaminated the world, made a covenant with Abraham to bring redemption to a dying world. He was the God who split the red sea and delivered his people from Egypt. It was in God’s acts through history that his character was revealed. This is seen all throughout the Old Testament. Whenever God is praised for certain characteristics (especially in the Psalms), it is almost always in the context of something that he has done.

Our God is not a god who asks us to believe things about himself that we don’t actually see in reality. He is the God who reveals himself through his mighty acts of redemption throughout history. We know him by what he has done. And because of these things, we have hope that he will continue to act mightily to redeem mankind.

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