One True God

Psalm 145:18
The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.


Saint Augustine wrote, "Grant me, Lord, to know and understand which is first: …to know You or to call on You? Who can call on You, not knowing You? For He that does not know You may call on You as something other than You are. Or, is it rather that we call on You so that we may know You?"

There are so many people in this world who pray to "god." I would imagine they call him by some of the same names we use – god, lord, master, whatever – but are they praying to our God? No. Because they have in mind a god that is other than the one true God.

However, might I suggest that we may have the same problem, on a bit more minor of a scale? Shocking? Yes. But I wonder how many of us have in our minds an idea of God that is other than that which is the truth. I’m sure I’ve got a few. The problem with this is that when a situation arises and we believe that God is going to act in one way, but it is really against His nature, then we could be flung into doubt. God is who He is, whether we believe it to be true or not.

On the flip side, God knows our hearts, and He can see when someone is truly longing to know Him, to see Him, and to know the truth. We can call on Him in ignorance, and He will reveal Himself to us, that we would know Him. But again, do we even have hearts like that? Or do we like to sit blissfully by, thinking that God is what we think He is, not caring to change our minds?

"My god is a loving god – he would never get angry about ______________," or "he would never expect me to ___________." How many times do we hear this sort of thing? "My god." And that’s really what we have, our own made-up god who may resemble the Almighty, but in truth is just a fraction of who God really is.

God is very complex – I doubt we will ever come to know all there is to know about Him, or really, fully understand Him, until, perhaps, we meet Him on the other side. We can try, though, and I believe He delights in our getting to know Him. He is anxious that we would come to know and love Him in His full nature.

We need to get to know God – His every nuance, sinew, and shade. We need to let Him saturate our entire being, and fill us with His very nature. We need to let Him teach us all He is, and all that makes us His. We need to know Him in complete truth, even if that means giving up all of our pre-conceived, ill-informed ideas of who He is, or who we want Him to be. Let’s make it our goal to learn something new about the one, true God each and every day.