Peeling Back the Curtain

I want to write, very briefly, directly to you today. If your eyes are reading these words, then consider them yours; I want you to have them. They are yours to take or yours to leave behind. But I must warn you: I am more than prepared to beg on your behalf that you take them; in fact, I have been begging for quite sometime now- begging that you would read these words and take them to heart; that you would hold them there tight and keep them very, very close; that you would slow down a moment and take in deep, rich, soulful breaths of the absolute supremacy of blood-stained, glory-soaked, spirit-saturated Christ Jesus our Lord. I am begging for you to be still and sink your teeth into the marrow of His beautifully broken body. I am begging you to join me on the trail today. I am begging you to join me on the Hosea-like journey of knowing God (Hosea 6:3). I am asking you to read on and press in. I am asking you to take heart, good friend, and follow the trail first blazed at the shaping of every star. The hanging of every planet. The collaborating of every molecule. The forming of every formless world. The creating of every creature. The planting of every tree. The knitting together of every galaxy. The filling in of every ocean. The carving out of every canyon. The molding of every mountain. The child-like coloring of every sunrise. The cursive-like writing of every soul. The breathing of life into every breathless body. The unconditional handpicking of every beloved child. The swinging of every son’s sword. The stepping of every daughter’s dance. Yes, good friend, I am most definitely writing to you. And I am inviting you to peel back the curtain, and catch soul staggering glimpses of the absolutely awesome supremacy of Christ in all things, over all things, through all things, beyond all things. I am inviting you to know the heart of God. I am showing you the way into the knee shattering knowledge of Him. So, won’t you please take my open hand and walk with me awhile? I’d really love to talk with you…

Grab a Bible if you’ve got one close; that’ll be our walking stick.

Hosea 6:3
“Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD;
his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers,
as the spring rains that water the earth."

2 Peter 1:3-4
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

These are two of my favorite passages in all of scripture. I would put them in my top five of all time, thrown in the mix with Genesis 1-3, Romans 8, and Ezekiel 16. Don’t ask me to sort them out one through five because I just can’t. That’s like asking me to pick between Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark or Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade; you just can’t do it. Something like that takes a prayer rug, a lot of prayer beads, and some vanilla scented candles. But we aren’t talking about Indy’s adventures today, no matter how mind-blowing they might be; we’re talking about the knowledge of God, and how mind-blowing that actually is.

I love these two verses specifically for so many different reasons. We’ll work with our boy Hosea first. Hosea is my second favorite book in the Bible. If you don’t know it, here’s a very quick overview of the story. God comes to Hosea, tells him to marry a hooker, he asks God to repeat what He just said, God repeats “hook-er,” and Hosea obeys. Hosea’s wife is… well, she’s a downright whore. She is constantly belittling, betraying, insulting, condemning, and cursing Hosea, but God tells Hosea to suck it up and love her regardless. In fact, every time Gomer (Hosea’s wife) is unfaithful and cruel towards Hosea, God increases Hosea’s love for her. Every time Gomer tells Hosea he’s an idiot, Hosea grows wild with more love in his heart for her. Sounds an awful lot like some guy I know. Eventually, God takes Gomer into the wilderness, strips her of absolutely everything; I mean, He literally depraves her of all that she is. He takes away her jewelry, her clothes, her pretty hair, her sweet smelling skin, and leaves her crying and naked in the desert. Alone. Broken. Ruined. Exposed. Ashamed. Empty. Makes her shoulder the shame of all her sluttish acts. The weight of all her whorish ways. And then God comes and finds her, and puts her back on her feet. Covers her naked body with a wedding dress. Dries the tears from her flushed cheeks. Brushes the dirt from her tangled hair. Wipes out all the men that ever took advantage of her. Restores the parts of her soul that were raped. And whispers beauty back into her heart. Whispers purity. Whispers honor. Whispers redemption. And as God is holding Gomer’s head in His mighty hands, Gomer looks up and stares into the eyes of God, and whispers back, “My Husband… You are my Husband and I love you.” And God looks back, smiles a wild grin, and whispers, “ And you my bride… You are my bride and I will always love you more.” Pretty awesome picture. But it doesn’t get awesome unless God breaks Gomer, kind of like He has to do with us. It is God’s breaking that leads to our beauty, so that our beauty may point back to His breaking and ultimately His boasting. And it is Gomer’s beautiful breaking, and Israel’s beautiful breaking that causes Hosea to sing those amazing lines in chapter six, verse three. Let us know; let us press onto know the LORD. Here is what is very important in that last part; it’s the usage of the word LORD with capital letters. LORD with capital letters is very different than Lord with lower case letters. LORD with capital letters is the name God gives Himself; It is the name He chooses to compliment all that He is. LORD with capital letters literally means, “I AM,” or “I WILL ALWAYS BE.” LORD with capital letters is God’s way of saying, “I AM SUPREME OVER ALL THINGS. I SET THIS UP. I DID ALL OF THIS. ALL OF THIS IS ME! I PUT THE PLANETS IN MOTION; I MADE THE STARS SHINE; I MADE THE EARTH TAKE SHAPE; I MADE THE LION ROAR; I MADE THE TREE GROW; I MADE THE RIVER FLOW; I WROTE THE WORD; I AM THE WORD! I AM THE LORD! Lord with lower case letters doesn’t mean quite so much. Lord with lower case means I’m Lord of this little nation over here, not the entire universe. Lord with little letters does not mean, “I AM HOLDING EVERYTHING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED AND EVERYTHING THAT WILL HAPPEN IN PERFECT HARMONY. ALL OF EXISTENCE FITS INSIDE THE PALM OF MY RIGHT HAND AND I AM BALANCING IT ALL THERE WITH MY EYES CLOSED! STANDING ON ONE LEG! WHILE JUMPING UP AND DOWN! I AM THE LORD!”
So, in other words, Hosea is literally saying, “let us know; let us press onto know God in His absolute sovereignty over all things, including my beautifully broken bride or the breaking of Israel. Hosea is saying “Let us know God in His perfect, self-glorifying supremacy. And so I say to you: let us press on, let us press on to know the LORD.

Now you might be saying to yourself, “That’s great, Ryan. That’s a nice story, but how do I know God in all His supremacy? How do I peel back the curtain and catch the soul-staggering glimpses of His Glory? Is there like some ten week program I can do? Or a pamphlet that has 10 steps I could follow? Or maybe just a movie I could watch? How can I ever begin to understand the LORD with capital letters? And I will answer you with this: There is a book, a little over 1000 pages long, that has been thrown to the fire time and time again, and never been burned. I will answer you by begging you to bury yourself in the love-drunk, blood-soaked, God-centered poetry of the Bible. Look at the verse in 2 Peter with me. Does verse three not say that God, in His divine power, has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence? Here’s your answer! The supremacy of Christ in all things has given you everything you need to understand His sovereignty in your own life and your own journey towards godliness, through growing in the knowledge Him, so that He might be further glorified! God doesn’t leave us little pamphlets with 10 step programs, or little self instructional videos to watch. He leaves us the Living Word! He leaves us with a book about His absolute supremacy! The Bible isn’t a book about you; it’s an ongoing story about how time after time God proves Himself and His supremacy over all things! It isn’t flawed. There are no places scratched out or erased; This is the heart of God for freakin sake! It has been commissioned as Truth by the blood of Golgotha! This is how you learn the knowledge of God. Not by never having smoked a cigarette or sipped on a beer! Not by following a bunch of rules that lead nowhere! That’s not knowing. That’s not what Hosea meant by pressing onto know! The word “know” is so sexy. Think about it! It is a sexy word! I don’t think Hosea used the world “know” to mean mere mental awareness. He wasn’t saying “let us press onto to be mentally aware of the LORD.” No, the know Hosea uses is the “know” of a lover. A lover who is totally ravished by what he discovers; by what he sees. Let’s know God like a lover. Let’s know Him intimately, and personally, and passionately. Not, like a professor knows geometry. Let’s know the grandeur and glory of God with our souls, not just our minds. Let’s know God like ravished lovers, not bored geometry teachers.

So I say to you, friends: stay close to Truth. Take deep breaths of these passages. Let the words fill your lungs until you suffocate and have to cough them up. Swim in this current of God’s great ocean. Do a cannonball into the ocean Scripture and let the salty water of that sea splash, and spill out to the world around you. I am begging you to stand in this Scripture because it is the tool God uses to reshape and sharpen a formless and dull soul. Make every effort to compliment your God-initiated faith with the great story of God’s awesome supremacy. His will in the order of the orbit of all the universe is your out; your great escape into the blinding, radiating sunshine of His presence. So I say to you: stay buried in the Scriptures. If you are going to wander and wrestle, then wander and wrestle in the wilderness of His Holy Word. Scrape your arms and legs on the branches of the Good Book. Bleed and breathe in the breathtaking beauty of the Bible. The breath of God is literally kissing your face as you turn the leaf-thin pages of His boundless glory. Starve to the point of suffering for the sake of the Scripture. God promises to reveal Himself to you through scripture, and you will grow in the knowledge of His supremacy over all the broken parts of your heart. Let the knowledge of God guard, and govern, and guide your feet as you step through the stones of life. This Great Word is the heart of God. We must chase after it. We must catch it’s elusive scent and follow it into the high countries of Holiness. In it we will find the sovereign will of God. But we must open it. We must breathe it in. We must play in it. We must get dirty, and messy, and muddy in it. We must learn to take risks and step where there is no stone. We must learn to do this in the Glory sea of God’s Scriptures. I am begging you to soak the soul of all you are in the soul of all God is and forever will be. Know God. Take the first step. Go. Engage. Embark. Depart. Dance into the Hosea-like journey of knowing God. Peel back the curtain. Know God the very way He knows you. Make this your pursuit. Press on, my dear friend, into the jaw-dropping, soul-shattering, mind-blowing, knee-breaking knowledge of God. Stay grounded in the Word; I beg you, lest you never know God the way He designed you for. Lest the canyon of you soul stay empty. Lest you continue to eat foods that never fill. Lest you continue to fill it with sex, fancy clothes, good grades, lots of friends, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, pretty hair, the perfect body, the best reputation, the right job. Eat the Word of God, lest your soul never know the honey of Christ and His love-scarred hands. Please, friend. Know God and you will not fall. You are promised to flourish like a palm tree. You will be strong, rooted deeply in the foundation of the Most High Holy Father. Plant your feet in the soil of these scriptures and live! Let them grow you wild, like blossoming vines across the countryside. Let the wedding bells of Hosea 6:3 and 2 Peter 1:3-4 ring loud in your redeemed heart. Press onto know! Do this and He will come to you like He came to Gomer in the desert. He will find you. James tells us that God promises to draw near to us when we draw near to His spirit. So draw yourself into the Spirit and sit there until God comes. Don’t move. Don’t you dare go anywhere. Be still and know. He will come like a cool rain in the hot desert. He will come and flood your dry, canyon soul. He will reveal Himself to you. You will know Him. He will wrap you in the warm blanket of His never-ending Holiness and make You His. Take heart in the absolute supremacy of Christ and His Holy Word. It is no roadmap to life. Is that what we want to dwindle the Greatest Story ever told down to? Directions? Come on! The Holy Words of God are the blueprints to boasting the Glory of the LORD on high. It is the songbook to His gut-wrenching sovereignty over all things. So open it and start building. So open it and start singing, lest you never know how beautiful your voice really is. Lest you never sing the sweet name of the Savior. Open the Good Book and breathe. Crack open the cannon of crucified Christ and know. Boast the saving mercies of His splintered Cross. Boast the bloodstained battlefield of Golgotha. Boast the victory secured there, for it never has to happen again. We were rescued once forever. Journey on, my friend, and know the absolute supremacy of the Trinity over all things. And bring yourself to the wedding altar of The Father’s love. Through knowing God we become like brides going forth to marry her grinning Groom. We trade old rags for a flowing wedding dress. So press on. Peel back the curtain. Go and get married. Go… and know.