Easiest answer I give to such questions: Hidden things. Faith in God's Word. He says He loves us. He says He delights in us. This means something far different and far better than what I mean or experience as love. God is impassible. He is unchanging. His love toward me is more true than anything I think love is, and is it not predicated on anything in me.
Hi Dane,
God's love for His own is unchanging. His love has no effect on His impassibility. God is so far above us in every imaginable way that I would have a hard time believing that we could know anything about God with an assurance that that knowledge, though imperfect as to extent, and know with confidence that we have true knowledge. And this knowledge is only available to you as Spirit taught truths written in His Holy Word.
God can and does "exceedingly above all that we ask or even think." He is, as they say, totally Other.
God's revelation of Himself anthropomorphically, while we continue to believe in God's impassibility, it is good to remember that when he says He gets angry, delights in, hates, answers prayer, turns a deaf ear to prayer at times, He is telling the truth. Why should we think it strange that God can do things that we can neither understand nor do ourselves? He is limitless. I believe we honor God most when we know He is impassible and, at the same time, know that everything He says about loving us, getting angry, etc., is also true in a way that harmonizes with both things. It would be as hard to understand what I mean if I said this person is dead and alive simultaneously. You would think I was crazy.
Consider how God relates to us in the Bible. There are hundreds, if not a thousand, places where God speaks of his emotions toward man. I haven't checked this statement out, but I'm pretty sure I'm correct in saying that 99% of God's interaction with man is according to our nature and understanding–and He expects us to respond accordingly.
Some have gotten this very lopsided and said, "prayer doesn't change anything. How can it be? God never changes." Does prayer change things? It depends on the context, the speaker's clear implications, and your correct inferences. If I were to ask if our prayers change any of God's decrees, a resounding
no should come from our mouths. But if I were to ask the more generic, "does prayer change things?" The answer is a resounding yes. Many sound men have written in detail about these two questions. I will stop after stating what is the case.
Jeremiah 9:23-24
Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.”
Isaiah 66:1-2
Thus says the Lord: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.
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Job's "friend," Zophar asked this question of job.
Job 11:7 ESV
“Can you find out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limit of the Almighty?
The implication is that you cannot know "the Deep things of God."
But is that true?
1 Corinthians 2:9-10 ESV (verse 9 is one of the most misunderstood verses in the Bible. So many people so often refer it to the future, to heaven, but what is the answer of Paul in verse 10?)
But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—
these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
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This example of the type of prayer to pray for yourself and other believers is your highest priority.
Ephesians 3:14-21
For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
