For the past two blogs, I’ve exalted Jack and Rebecca, Randall and Kate and Kevin…five unbelievably realistic and powerful characters in the Pearson family of This Is Us. If you haven’t yet checked out this TV series on NBC, I couldn’t more highly recommend it!
Now, please understand that at age 61, I am gravitating more and more away from watching TV. Even many of my formerly beloved NFL games on Sundays and through-the-summer nightly Colorado Rockies contests are getting replaced with more productive activities. I’m also keeping my drama-watching down to the very best shows (for my tastes) like Scorpion and Madam Secretary and Nashville — in order to move back to more consistent Bible study, novel reading, and writerly skills development training.
Still, I can’t help but praise This Is Us. Two enthusiastic thumbs up. It’s that good.
However, one day when that show is all over (if that day ever comes), and I’ve gone on with my life…how much of the drama from This Is Us will have impacted my character deep inside? How much will it have transformed me?
I’m thinking that only knowing God more and more can really do that. They say you become like who or what you admire, even adore. You especially become like those who have captivated your attention the most, the ones you spend the most time with and listen to the most.
When we’re young, that’s our parents or guardians.
But soon, we can get introduced to God himself, through observing nature and asking deep questions…
…then through hearing His main message, which is recorded in the Bible and is about His Son and the price He paid to save us.
Both of those pursuits require something far different from passivity in my recliner. They require serious attention and heart-searching and dealing with the voice of God’s Spirit speaking at the very core of my existence.
And then! After getting well along in the pursuit and appreciation of those two parts of knowing God, I can advance further. I can continue on into a steadily active, seeking, progressive pursuit of Scriptural truth that helps me know God like I’ll never know Jack and Rebecca, or Randall and Kate and Kevin from This Is Us.
Warning: Mere observance of church rituals and “going through the motions” at church has little to do with what really allows us to know God. Millions of people on earth are deceived at this point, and they need to wake up and smell the spiritual coffee.
Difference #3: If I truly want to know and understand God — this was something God told Jeremiah the prophet was to be valued above all else in life and something to really
“boast about” — I must diligently learn of the Bible’s full revelation through listening to emotionally mature, theologically sound pastors and teachers on a regular basis.
I’ve gotten to know fairly well the This Is Us characters with only one hour a week of exposure to their drama on TV. I’ve kicked back, relaxed, and simply watched and listened.
But with spiritual truth, I’ve got to get a bit more serious than that. What really helps at this point is to listen closely to qualified presenters and even take notes. When I do this, I find myself wanting to ponder, and discuss, and think some more and pray. I come back to the same verses that my pastors and teachers have directed my attention toward before, so that I can reconsider and ponder yet again, and pray again.
In a word, I steadily and aggressively seek to know God through understanding — and living out in my faith and actions! — more of the powerful truth of Scripture.
And here’s the thing: I need to progress on this journey with a sincere heart that I guard from the corruptions of the world threatening me at all times. If I go rogue and turn immoral in my behavior in spite of being a believer in Christ, forget getting to know God better until I repent. Yes, I know that young and/or “carnal” Christians can actually act just as bad as, or worse than, “the lost” of this world.
Is, then, my pursuit of God to be a frantic all-out rush? Should I become desperate and obsessed? Not at all. We only truly grow like trees and grass grow. Quietly. Steadily. Slowly. Without a lot of fanfare and fuss. We don’t draw attention to it, we just do it…by feeding on spiritual nutrients and drawing in “Son-shine” and rain as we bask in the knowledge of the great love of God.
So…this begs the question: do Sunday School and Vacation Bible School alone when I am a kid, and a weekly sermon now as an adult, meet my lifelong need for this kind of learning? No way. Those things are excellent, but they only get me started.
In fact, I hungered way back in college for more and more understanding of God and Christianity so I dropped my Business major then my English major, keeping them as minors while I put Theology classes at the top of my priority list and got a degree in Bible. I also studied devotionally on my own, memorizing many verses.
Then I went on to Seminary — without any particular ministry calling — because I just wanted to keep learning.
But not everyone needs to do formal training. I was destined to become a Youth Minister for over 10 years, so I did. But we all can study and grow closer to, and more knowledgeable of, God without formal theological studies.
Sorry, Jack and Rebecca, but when I turn the TV off and am not watching your show anymore, I’m not going to “study you” any further.
I will, however, study God. Humbly and persistently. Not becoming arrogant in my “knowledge” but all the time becoming more a servant to the glorious Lord Jesus Christ who is infinitely good and loving to me.
Special note: Baby Christians — and even older but still immature believers — can and do stumble badly at times. Especially if they get deceived and become either arrogant or fearful. As one wise pastor taught, Satan has a strategy for your destruction. And I’ve come to understand that generational curses and sin patterns run deep and insidious.
Anyway, J. I. Packer, in his all-time super-brilliant classic entitled Knowing God, emphasizes that there is no higher, greater pursuit in this life than drawing close to, and seeking to contemplate and understand the greatness of, God himself. All other things in our star-crossed earthly pilgrimages will fade away in significance. How much I know God in this life, though, makes a huge difference in my forever and ever.
On this subject, aside from John Eldredge’s Wild At Heart 3-book series, I can’t recommend any other author or book more than I do J. I. Packer’s Knowing God. It takes real intellectual and spiritual work to get through the book. But is it ever worth it!
Difference #4: I can seek the knowledge of God on my own without a pastor or a teacher helping me….if I have a good foundation of understanding to start with and the Spirit helps me.
What if the characters in This Is Us were willing to come to your home and sit down with you over a cup of coffee and explain more and more of themselves and their lives to you personally? Would you take them up on it? I would! I’m a novelist and I’d love to get further insights into their characters/personalities/etc. And I’d love to ask them questions about themselves and their dramatic actions in various scenes and about what led them to becoming a character on This Is Us!
But even more importantly, I want what Jesus promised, particularly as recorded in John’s Gospel: the Holy Spirit speaking to me and explaining things as I read the Bible, opening up my spiritual understanding as I study. Alone, I’m pretty sure I’d be feckless when it comes to growing myself up spiritually. But with the Spirit, who is Christ himself in unseen form, I have a great teacher who loves me and loves to empower me as I labor to expand my knowledge of God.
Now granted, there is definitely a place for man-made Bible study tools. Like many, many others, I have profited greatly from Vine’s Theological Dictionary that gives me clear definitions and the root meanings of words in the New and Old Testaments both. I also love study Bibles and concordances and various commentaries. But in the end, it’s the Spirit who must clarify things in a way that empowers me to keep Jesus’ commands in my daily comings and goings.
Oh, and one more thing. Someone once said: “We Christians have only one book God calls us to master. Compared to the many texts that lawyers and doctors and other professionals have to study to gain authorization in their fields of practice, we believers have but one book, made up of 66 chapters. We must set as our determined goal the mastery of the knowledge of this one book.”
Well, I buy into that view, to a degree. Mostly, I just want to walk with God everyday — through meditation and prayer — and be as aggressive as I can in studying Scripture. If I don’t know every single name or fact or restatement of essential spiritual truth contained in the Bible before I die, but I’m still obedient in my walk, it’s all good.
Guess what? I pretty much know that neither the writers nor the directors nor the producers of This Is Us, and not even the actors themselves, are ever going to come be with me to tell me more about the TV story that’s so great. It’s a nice fantasy to hope that they would, but…not gonna happen.
Jesus, though? By His Spirit? Anytime I’m ready to get serious about seeking the knowledge of God, He’ll be right there with me!
Difference #5: To get to know God as He wants me to, I must actively participate in His “body,” the church, as represented in a local congregation.
Doing this, I’ve got to be intentional and intelligently committed about following the leadership of my pastor(s) and loving as many individual members as I can as I regularly join with all of them in worship, outreach ministry, giving money, etc. That’s when…
…a “miracle” occurs. I get to see Jesus through the lives and special ministries of my fellow church members. Yes, they are very imperfect. The better I get to know them, the more clearly I’ll see their flaws. This calls for spiritual patience and forgiveness and love.
But it’s only in the dynamics of sharing fellowship with my brothers and sisters in church life do I get to see what the Lord does in that context, which is awesome if observed over time and with spiritually keen insight. Church life doesn’t need to be as sensational as a Hollywood movie. Best that it isn’t. That would be too exhausting.
But…
It’s only the spiritually empty-headed and empty-hearted that find no worth at all in the life of the church. Perhaps they’ve set themselves up as judges rather being servants of Jesus?
So…keeping my distance and doing “my own thing” far away from my local church is nothing like what Jesus calls us to do. He died for the church. The Apostle Paul wrote some of his most weighty letters to individual congregations as well as some to church-leading individuals like Timothy.
The church, then, is truly where the action is in redemption history. If you alienate yourself from Jesus’s ongoing work by not choosing some Bible-believing local church near you to share your life with, what solid assurance do you have that you belong to Him at all? You clearly don’t share His values.
Oh, and as all this relates to our truly wonderful This Is Us characters?
They’ll be happy if I just sit at home and watch them on my TV from hundreds or even thousands of miles away. It’s only entertainment, after all. Not intended for purposes related to eternal life. No real fellowship or mutual commitment required.
Grand Vitality 