Incarnation and Invitation

God is both incarnational and invitational. It’s important that we learn to relate to Him in both aspects.

As the incarnational God, He dwells among us and gets involved in our details. He sees things from our perspective. He hears our groans, and He identifies with our pain. When God speaks to Moses through the burning bush, He says, “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them . . .” (Exodus 3:7, 8). Because God heard their cry and knew their sorrows, He came down. He manifested Himself through a burning bush and sent Moses as His agent to bring deliverance. This God who descends is the incarnational God.

Of course, the incarnational theme reaches its climax in Jesus. John 1:14 states, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us . . . .” As the One who “became flesh and dwelt among us,” Jesus not only existed in a human body, but also He experienced all the pains and temptations that come with human existence. Hebrews 4:15 says about Jesus, “For we do not have a High Priest who can’t sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Jesus can “sympathize with our weaknesses” because He experienced all of them. This is God incarnate.

While being the incarnational God, He is also the invitational God. He not only comes down to where His people are, He calls His people to come up to where He is. In doing so, He invites us beyond our limited, earthly experience into a heavenly realm that enlarges our vision and brings us into rhythm with Himself.

After God comes down with deliverance for Israel, He then speaks to Moses, “Come up to Me on the mountain and be there; and I will give you tablets of stone, and the law and commandments which I have written, that you may teach them” (Exodus 24:12). God invites Moses to come up the mountain in order to understand the things that He has written. The descent of God focused on Israel’s deliverance. The ascent of Moses focused on God’s teaching. In His descent, God got involved in Israel’s story. In Moses’ ascent, Israel got involved in God’s story.

This invitational God not only spoke to Moses in Exodus, but also He is the same God who calls the nations today. Isaiah 2:3 says, “Many people shall come and say, ‘Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths.’” This cry of the nations echoes God’s invitation to Moses. When we “go up to the mountain of the LORD . . . He will teach us His ways,” just as He taught Moses and taught Israel.

John, who wrote about the incarnational God, the One who “dwelt among us,” also experienced the invitational God as well. In Revelation 4:1, John writes, “After these things I looked and, behold, a door standing open in heaven. And the first voice which I heard was like a trumpet speaking with me, saying, ‘Come up here, and I will show you things which must take place after this.’” John first sees God as the One who gets involved in our story. Next, he sees God as the One who invites him into a heavenly story. John hears a voice inviting him higher, to see things from God’s perspective.

Both aspects of God are important for our own spiritual health. If we don’t see God as incarnational, then we’ll assume He is distantly on a throne, uninterested and uninvolved in our lives. We’ll assume that we’re on our own to navigate life, providing for our own needs and sorting our own problems. Of course, that couldn’t be further from the truth! God is the God who sees, who knows, who cares, and who acts on our behalf. At the same time, if we only envision God as incarnational and not also invitational, then we can make ourselves the center of our worldview. We’ll make God simply the answer to our problems, while forgetting that He has an agenda and a kingdom that is not of this world. While He certainly comes down to get involved in our story, He ultimately wants us to come up and get involved in His story.

I want to encourage you to embrace both aspects of God today. He is incarnational, and He is invitational. He is insanely interested and involved in the details of your life, and He simultaneously wants to call your attention beyond the details into a larger world. He wants to meet your needs and enlarge your perspective. He came down to deliver so you can come up to see.