THE FORM OF GOD IS LIKE A MAN

—04/09/24. What is the form of GOD? What do you see when you think of GOD?

When I am serious about waking up early in the morning to pray, I set two alarms. One at 3:45 a.m. and another at 4:00 a.m. (I set a third for 3:50 a.m. if I severely distrust my early bird capabilities). After snoozing several times, I grab my phone from underneath my pillow and my AirPods from my work table. I plug them into my ears before sitting with my knees up to my chest and closing my eyes to talk with GOD.

I don’t always picture ABBA before I pray because prayer is a matter of faith (Hebrews 11:6). Still, when I do, the picture of GOD in my head is usually a large ethereal figure, seated with occupancy in heaven and filling up space on a throne with the elements and all life at His beck and call. But this is a small image–I know it is smaller than the Bible describes GOD to be. Yet, it is just enough for my frail mind to carry without breaking. Isn’t it written in the Good Book that Heaven is HIS throne and the earth His footstool (Isaiah 66:1)? I know that my mind fails me because all I can imagine is maybe a large foot on the roof of my house but my house is definitely not the size of the earth. It is on the Earth! 

To begin to understand the largeness of GOD, we must understand the smallness of our physical faculties or senses. We must understand that we can never fully understand, not here on Earth. Our understanding must birth a resignation that we will never see fully–but we don’t need to–to walk with GOD.  

To begin to understand the largeness of GOD, we must understand the smallness of our physical faculties or senses. We must understand that we can never fully understand, not here on Earth. Our understanding must birth a resignation that we will never see fully–but we don’t need to–to walk with GOD.

– Maranatha

It is like when David said ‘This wondrous knowledge is beyond me. It is lofty; I am unable to reach it’ (Psalm 139:6). He had resigned to the severe limitations of his (and our) mind(s) to comprehend GOD. Wasn’t this the same man after GOD’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14)? He might not have seen with his eyes or perceived fully with his mind but there was something better to perceive with. 

How do we even know that we are limited? 

When I use the word ‘form’, it is to paint a context that our minds can fathom. However, GOD is way beyond that. 

The irony is that when we think of GOD, we never just think of HIS form. We think of HIS love, goodness, kindness, power, sovereignty and everything we believe HE is comprised of. Since GOD is not physical like we are, HIS form is beyond a mere contour to ALL that HE is. 

GOD is a Spirit. Those who worship this GOD must do so in spirit and truth (John 4:24). The arrangement of your facilities is spirit, soul and body. You are first a spirit that has a soul who lives in a body (1 Thessalonians 5:23).

Highlighting this is necessary because what we commonly do is try to understand GOD with our physical or mental senses. It is why we long for signs and wonders; we want to hear GOD and instead of tuning our spirits to HIS frequency we tilt our ears to pick unusual sounds in our environment. We’re checking to see if Angel Desmond has suddenly appeared or if our closet is now filled with bright light and maybe we’re finally going to have THAT encounter. 

GOD’s design puts our spirits first, it is the one place where we have a chance to leap from earth into heaven to correctly perceive GOD. It is through our spirits, primarily, that we are led by GOD. 

But there is a spirit in man, And the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding.
(Job 32:8)

The spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord, Searching all the inner depths of his heart
(Proverbs 20:27)

 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
(Romans 8:14)

This is why we know that we are limited–it is because our minds, which draw from our spirit, cannot often express the information that it has received due to its limitation from mortality (1 Corinthians 13:10). It is why many times we hear GOD but misinterpret HIS commands because we try to use our minds to make sense of the spiritual. And why sometimes, you erupt in tongues because your speech is not enough to bless GOD’s works in your life! There is an unfathomableness to GOD that can either spark absolute wonder and leave us yearning for more…or make us so mentally overwhelmed that we’d rather not entertain it. As Elihu bid Job (37:14), I also ask you to stop, right now, and consider GOD’s wonders! And not just today, make it a daily practice. 

Our minds know that it is failing in its effort to attach a form to HIM. But is there even a need to give GOD a form? 

I am not alone in my thinking

While pondering on this topic of GOD’s form, I decided to run a poll via my Instagram community to see what other people thought. My community is made up of mostly Christians since that is the sort of content I share. 

I asked: ‘If you could give me five minutes of your imagination. I am writing a piece on the form of GOD and I would like to hear from you, please. What do you think GOD looks like? What is the image that comes into your mind when you think of GOD?’

I got several answers but these stood out to me:

• Light. No image, just a bright light shining in the most beautiful way!
• I don’t picture a man. I picture a quiet room with a voice. 
• Cloud. Gold and space with light everywhere.
• A Daddy.
• Really big. White robes. Too white so they blind you. There’s also gold in the white. A Crown.
• Light… that blinding kind of light.
• Mighty Ruler.
• It’s Light… Endless Light… Glorious beautiful Light. Light that catches your attention.
• No picture. Just a longing for heaven!

In all these responses I saw something so beautiful that my heart melted. I saw a grasping and I saw a gap filled with grace and a faith that must look like foolishness to men. I saw a form without form and a shape without shape. It strengthened my knowledge of the Word that until the perfect comes, the imperfect is what we must make do with. ‘but when the perfect comes, the partial will come to an end. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known.’ (‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭13‬:‭10‬, ‭12‬).

In Ezekiel 1:25-28, the prophet saw a vision: 

A voice came from above the expanse over their heads; when they stopped, they lowered their wings. Something like a throne with the appearance of lapis lazuli was above the expanse over their heads. On the throne, high above, was someone who looked like a human.  From what seemed to be his waist up, I saw a gleam like amber, with what looked like fire enclosing it all around. From what seemed to be his waist down, I also saw what looked like fire. There was a brilliant light all around him. 
The appearance of the brilliant light all around was like that of a rainbow in a cloud on a rainy day. This was the appearance of the likeness of the Lord’s glory. When I saw it, I fell facedown and heard a voice speaking.

Ezekiel described what he saw as the appearance of the likeness of GOD’s glory. I find it interesting that he narrates it in this manner, making allowance for his limitations in describing through his mental facilities what his spirit saw in his vision. 

We are imperfect, how could we possibly see a perfect GOD?

Will it always be like this?

Our prayers are inward to heaven. 

What is from GOD starts from your spirit and transmits to your soul before imparting your body. It is why you receive something in your spirit but you have to carry it and believe it in your mind before it is manifest in your physical body. 

For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation (Romans 10:10).

At the start of our walk with GOD, we believe with our spirits and when we are convicted in our soul of its truth we proceed to confess it with our mouth! Spirit, soul, body! At salvation, what gets saved is our spirit and soul–our bodies have to play catchup. It is why we are given the imperative to renew our minds through our spirits’ connection to the Holy Spirit so that our bodies can come under the influence of the Spirit of GOD rather than being subject to the world’s influence. 

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. 
(Romans 12:1-2).

For many Christians, this is where the real fight begins. Your spirit is saved but your mental faculties have to be renewed according to GOD’s standard since you ‘have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him’ (Colossians 3:10). 

The sad news is that as long as we exist on this earth, this fallen earth, we are subject to being tempted to heed the flesh and its desires. We are tempted to attach a form to a GOD without a form just to placate our fleshy need for sight over faith. Yes, we are subject to catching glimpses of heaven with only a remote awareness of fullness being present in our spirit. And even that fullness has to constantly be renewed through unbroken fellowship with HIM otherwise we fall prey to becoming like the world we are supposed to stand out from.

Our walk on earth is by faith–rather than sight–without which nobody can please God (Hebrews 11:6). 

Do not despair. The hack is to fail forward:

Every time that you catch yourself starting from your flesh rather than your born-again spirit that takes from GOD’s Spirit, i.e. reacting to an insult by insulting the person, lashing out in anger etc. instead of giving a gentle response (Proverbs 15:1) or turning the other cheek (Matthew 5:39) as HIS Word recommends, see it as a stepping stone in your sanctification rather than a failure. Every mistake that brings you closer to GOD is no longer a failure but an attestation to CHRIST’s finished work in your life! 

For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified 
(Hebrews 10:14).

This sanctification (or renewal) must keep happening–every day we must seek GOD out through prayer and in HIS Word. How else do we know a person if not by studying and staying close to them? If we do this, our hearts will remain full and we will keep shedding the world until the entirety of our existence is an upward gaze set on that Celestial City that we start to live in it even while on earth. And then, the perfect will come and we will see Him face to face. Until then, we wait. We trust. We obey. 

The form of GOD is what you see in the mirror

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26).

Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I see my mother’s face. I look like her. Sometimes, I see my brother’s face too, I look like him. When I write, I see my father’s reflection because we’re the only writers in the family. 

A resemblance carries a reflection, it is something that looks like another thing. We look like GOD. You look like GOD. You should look in a mirror and see the face of GOD. Yes, you should look at yourself and see distinct attributes of GOD that confirm your sonship. An apple should not fall far from the tree. 

2 Corinthians 3:18 makes us realise that this reflection we examine is not a physical one, it is spirit to Spirit: ‘But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.‘

When we behold the LORD in fellowship and HIS Word, we transform. We increase in sanctification. We are, after all, the ones who have already been made perfect forever even as we undergo daily sanctification until we leave this world (Hebrews 10:14). 

What would JESUS do? If you look at your actions and see the glory of GOD then you see GOD’s form in the mirror. When you forgive when your opposer would never apologise then HIS form in the mirror becomes clearer. If you are unable to start your day without sitting at GOD’s feet and taking HIM through your day then HIS Image brightens and heaven not only kisses earth but makes a home in you. This is the form of GOD.

Why is HIS form important?

Why should we bother about what GOD even looks like? When I am heading out on a rainy day, I do my best to take an umbrella with me if it’s the rainy season. Why? Tendency. Probability. 

As GOD gave the Israelites of old the Law and other legislation, He said: 

Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure: the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth or the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground or the likeness of any fish that is in the water beneath the earth. And take heed, lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the Lord your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage.
(Deuteronomy 4:15-20)

GOD knew their tendencies and it is the same tendency that we have–idolatry. We might not find ourselves carving graven images to worship but we often may find ourselves directing our worship to entities other than Yahweh–this can stem even from the best intentions. Why? Because the sin of Adam (Genesis 3) meant a loss of our spiritual sight, tampering with the original context of fellowship as it should be with GOD. With the flesh being a sinful lover of ease, what is the next best thing? Certainly not to look to GOD for redemption, and do the hard work that needs to be done to put the flesh under. No. The next best thing, taking from the Golden Calf experience in Exodus 32, is to diminish ourselves and the Image of GOD in us by elevating above us the things that GOD has given us dominion over, and making them into our gods. In sum, picking sight over faith.Tsk tsk tsk.

The conclusion of the matter

Listen then, walk in faith. You did not see a form when the LORD picked you from your misery and darkness, translating you into HIS wonderful Light. You believed with your heart and you confessed with your mouth. On this side of eternity, believing is seeing. 

Maybe you saw a form, maybe it was like a man. Maybe GOD restricts these encounters so we do not limit our imagination of HIM by pandering to idolatry. The prayer, then, would be to never lose our wonder but to keep our imagination bright–not focused on the shape or details of HIS form but on the essence of HIS form consisting of HIS love, goodness and everything that makes our GOD, GOD. 

∞ END ∞

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