Cover to Cover

Reading: Deuteronomy 3:1-5:22

Focus: Deuteronomy 4:15-20

Let’s get straight to the point, nobody who has walked this earth (except for Jesus) has seen God. Nobody can tell you His form, nobody can give you a description of His image, not one single person knows what this being looks like. Maybe He’s Semitic in appearance? Or Asian? Or African? Or Caucasian? Nobody knows what God looks like. And yet, masses around the world revere Him, honour Him, worship Him, and give their lives over to Him.

The Israelites were reminded and warned that God was not one to be cast into the image of an idol for there was no form that they were familiar with to which would could compare or base their depiction of God upon. They were reminded that God was the Creator, above all things, above all peoples, above all animals and birds, above nature, above the sun, the moon and the stars—these things the nations had turned into false gods, into idols, so far from the truth of the One True God.

Yet, such is the struggle of faith, to hold onto that which has no form, no shape, no image… When we substitute something else for God, we substitute something created for its Creator. One of the ironies of Hollywood is that the actors are in the limelight in contrast to the directors and writers who get significantly less. Sure, the actors bring things to life, just like the sun gives us light, but it is the directors and writers who give the actors life, just as God made the sun to shine its light. The created can never succeed the Creator.

As God brought the Israelites out from Egypt, so God today has sent His Son, Jesus, to bring people out from the land of sin. If it were not reason enough that God was the Creator, how much more that He has brought His people out from slavery to sin. Though we may not discern the form of the Invisible, though we may not see Him who is Unseen, we can trust in that which we know—

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,

That saved a wretch like me…

I once was lost but now am found,

Was blind, but now, I see.

Next Reading: Deuteronomy 5:23-8:20