John 4:23-24
God is Spirit
23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.
Genesis 12:1-9
The Call of Abram
1 The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.
2 "I will make you into a great nation
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you."
4 So Abram left, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran. 5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
6 Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 The LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your offspring I will give this land." So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him.
8 From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD. 9 Then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev.
Exodus 1:1-22
Israelites are Repressed
1 These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family: 2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah; 3 Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin; 4 Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher. 5 The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all; Joseph was already in Egypt.
6 Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, 7 but the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them.
8 Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. 9 “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. 10 Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”
11 So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites 13 and worked them ruthlessly. 14 They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labor the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.
15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, 16 “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” 17 The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. 18 Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?”
19 The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.”
20 So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.
22 Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”
Ezekiel 38:23
God Will Reveal Himself One Day
23 And so I will show my greatness and my holiness, and I will make myself known in the sight of many nations. Then they will know that I am the Lord.
Jeremiah 29:13
God Wants to Be Found
13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
1 Kings 19:11-18
Elijah Meets God
11 The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
14 He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”
15 The Lord said to him, “Go back the way you came, and go to the Desert of Damascus. When you get there, anoint Hazael king over Aram. 16 Also, anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet. 17 Jehu will put to death any who escape the sword of Hazael, and Elisha will put to death any who escape the sword of Jehu. 18 Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him.”
Matthew 13:44-46
The Merchant Sells All He Has for the Kingdom of Heaven
44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. 45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. 46 When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.
1 John 4:8
God is LOVE
8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
As we read the Bible, and try to find out more about God, it He seems to me that sometimes He is hiding...It seems to be a pattern God hides...Then He makes Himself known...Then He hides again...
God to me seems most noticeable in Genesis and Exodus...It doesn't seem that His Presence is observed by everyone...God is very close and communicates with Adam and Eve...Then after the stories of creation and Adam and Eve leaving Eden time passes...Then we read the story of Noah and his adventures...And Noah and God communicate with each other...Then we wait and hear about God at another later time...God seems to be often in and out of direct communication with mankind...We see that God seems to hide after His creation and the earliest of mankind...Then is heard and made known to Abram or Abraham...God hides again and then is known to Isaac in Beersheba...God hides from Jacob and then wrestles with him...The families of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob seem blessed by God...And God becomes known as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob...
Then God hides from His people, after Jacob and Joseph depart, for four hundred years and then He makes Himself known to Moses...God seems to be most noticeable, at least to me, with the three Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob -and then to Moses...God then made Himself known to Jacob's son, Joseph, when he was in Egypt...But after Joseph and all his brothers and generation died, we do not hear much from God...There is this hiding period with God and mankind...God hides for four hundred years, and we read about this in the first chapter of Exodus...
God would be with Moses and His people as He traveled through the desert to the Promised Land...Then He would be with the Judges of Israel as they tried to keep law and order in the Promised Land and presided over the people...Then God made Himself known to Samuel...God would hide again and then He would make Himself known to the different Prophets...
One of my favorite stories in the Bible is Job...And God hides from Job and then makes Himself known to him from out of a storm...And God hid from Elijah, one of the Great Prophets, but then He allows Elijah to hear Him in a Gentile Whisper...
After the Old Testament ends with the Book of Malachi, God is made known to all people with His Son coming to earth to dwell among us...This seems to be God's pattern...God hides...Then God makes Himself known and obvious...God is most obvious through His Son...Then God hides again...Only to make Himself known again through the Holy Spirit...
So we see that God hides, then makes His Way known to man...Then He hides again...Then God makes His Ways and many attributes of His known through Jesus...God hides...Then He makes His Way known through the Holy Spirit...So God has made His Ways known through man and to man...And when God sends His Son to us, He lets us know much about Him...Through Jesus, and through the Holy Spirit we learn much about God and the Kingdom of God...The followers of Jesus, and especially the Twelve Disciples, would see Him for three years...They would get to know much about God...God would have His Son die on the cross for mankind's sins, and then resurrect Him and He would hide or at least be gone, but for only three days...Then Jesus would appear to His Disciples again for forty days...Then Jesus was gone and we lost sight of His Physical Appearance...And Jesus promised us the Holy Spirit, so we would not be orphans and without Him or God...Yet, we do not get do see Jesus, and so many times He seems to also be hidden...And for me I look and pray for a strong Holy Spirit, to strengthen my relationship with God and His Son, but still sometimes He seems hidden...He seems to like to play hide and seek...And even with Jesus the Disciples were at times confused with Jesus' teachings, and whether He was Divine or not divine (and just a Man)...So we see that God is subtle, very subtle in many of His actions...While man can be seen and therefore is obvious, God chooses to be Spirit and quite subtle...He likes to hide and be very gentle and quiet, like a gentle whisper...
God's nature seems to be like the Divine Game of Hide and Seek...It is like believers play a game of hide and seek with Him as He hides and we seek...And now that Jesus has left and ascended to heaven two thousand years ago, we need a strong Holy Spirit to help keep us in touch with Jesus and His Father...And sometimes the Holy Spirit is so quiet and so subtle that He also seems to be hiding...Why can't the Holy Spirit whom Jesus sent be strong in us and have us feel the Spirit of God...We know that with God's power and being Almighty, He can become obvious to one or everyone in the blink of an eye...But it seems that throughout history He often remains hidden from us...And He seems to become unhidden for the most part to one individual at a time, but this is not always the case...
I would like to know why He remains hidden most of the time, but I can only guess...Because there must be something very important reason in why He hides...We cannot take Him for granted, because He hides so often...There maybe only few times in our lives, we feel His touch or hear His Gentle Whisper and do we follow up with those times...Faith remains tough because sometimes it is reduced to the size of a mustard seed, but that is enough faith Jesus tells us...
The Prophet Ezekiel gives those that want to see God more hope...Ezekiel says that there will come a time when God no longer hides from us...And in the Book of Revelation, John verifies this in the last book of the Bible...
God is Spirit, and His followers and worshipers must worship Him in the Spirit and in Truth...Could God be always wanting us to find Him, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit?...The Bible says He does and wants us to seek Him...Could it be that the Most Precious Things in the Universe are worth seeking and searching, even if it takes a lifetime?...It is something to consider...
For me, the people that I love, I want to see them the most...But in God's Case, this hidden attribute of His helps make faith a Great Mystery to mankind...But since God is LOVE, then love has to be involved and most important to Him...Whoever does not love or know love, does not know God...Is there a teaching going on with Him that He is telling us that the love of desires and passions on earth are not what we quite think they are and there is much, much more, and maybe the very most important desire, passion, and love is the love of God?...And we should be spending more time with Him than earthly things...Maybe when we realize that God through our love for Him is the most important thing, we will give everything up in our earthly lives for Him, like the merchant did (who sold all he had)...