Expectation Revealed

How does God reveal to us His expectation of us? I am sure your immediate response is The Word, or you might say, Jesus. Of course, however, I have found hidden depths in most everything that is obvious. People, for example, are seldom what they first appear to be when you get to know them. Another is the Scripture. How can we read it year after year and study it day after day and continually come up with a fresh revelation that is awesome? Why do scientists study so diligently for so many years and suddenly find a breakthrough? Sometimes people will ask me if I know someone. My first response is that I know of them. Reading a book written by someone does not necessarily mean you know the author. Living with a person is opportunity to know them but until you are allowed to share their thoughts and motivations, their dreams and goals, their setbacks and their reactions to them, you still do not know them. Even after 62 years of marriage to the same man, I find new depths in him.

Why does God ask us to seek Him with our whole heart so He can be found of us? Matthew 7:7-8(NLT) 7 “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. The Greek verbs used here are on going verbs and the verbs used are progressive in nature. Asking is one level but knocking is a much higher level of the same process. Hosea 6:3 (NLT) 3 Oh, that we might know the Lord! Let us press on to know him. He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn or the coming of rains in early spring.”

God first began to reveal His Nature and purpose through the Names He gave to man. When man first began to gain knowledge, names were very important and expressed something about that person. But, as names were given to infants, people had to either change their name or gain additional names. God gave a Name to a person when He wanted that person to not only relate to Him in that Name, but to reveal that relationship through his life. Moses became a different man because of his relationship to God after He gained relationship wtih the I AM.

I am beginning a new series of lessons on the names of Jesus in the book of the Revelation. I hope this will be a revelation to you personally as you begin to see the revelation of God's expectation that is revealed in the Name by which He approaches us. In the message to each church, a different Name is used to show the expectation of that church and their failure to respond. I hope you will follow these and they will mean as much to you as they have to me. Just remember, we have a responsibility to respond to the truth we have received. Continue to grow in your relationship to Him and He will lead you deeper.