Monday, November 13, 2006

Knowing God

We can't get to heaven without knowing God. And you can't get to know God unless you go through his son, Jesus Christ. Today I read John, chapter 17. This is a beautiful chapter. The entire chapter is Jesus praying to his father. It's so personal! And it shows that Jesus truly cares. Reading this morning, I just was overwhelmed with a sense of how much Jesus loved his disciples. He loved them and was praying earnestly for God to watch over them once he left their presence. It is the same with us. Jesus did not just die for the disciples and his followers at the time. He died for us. He dies for you and me. When Jesus was praying for his disciples, he was also praying for us. How awesome is that!! 2000 years ago, Jesus was praying for me!!

Verse 17:3 says "This is the way to eternal life- to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth." The path to heaven, and to living forever is through the cross, and what Jesus did for us. We need to recognize what he has done for us, and thank him for what he has done, and accept that he did do that for us. People can walk around pretending it didn't actually happen, or discarding that it happened, but it doesn't change that fact that it did happen, and God wants all of us to recognize that fact. Once we've accepted Jesus's sacrifice for us, we can begin the wonderful process of knowing God more.

Knowing God doesn't involve knowing everything about him. If we did know everything, we'd pretty much have to be God ourselves. Fortunately for us, there are several ways that we can know a little bit about God and be saved by him. The first way is through nature. Romans 1:20 says, " For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God." Nature itself is the perfect example that God exists. He created such a wonderful world! Just look at the natural world around you. The trees, the animals, the hills, the oceans. It's all a miracle that God himself created for our enjoyment. Here's another example from Psalms 19: 1-4

1 The heavens proclaim the glory of God.
The skies display his craftsmanship.
2 Day after day they continue to speak;
night after night they make him known.
3 They speak without a sound or word;
their voice is never heard.
4 Yet their message has gone throughout the earth,
and their words to all the world.
God has made a home in the heavens for the sun.
Another way that we can get to know God is through our conscience. God has placed in all our hearts a natural understanding of right and wrong. A few days ago I discussed this as the Holy Spirit being our conscience. Here's what Hebrews 10:16 says about our conscience, “This is the new covenant I will make with my people on that day, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.” he helps us to naturally know the difference between good and evil, right and wrong.
The third way that we can know God more is through the Ten Commandments- and I'm not talking about the movie version. These commandments are clear and precise, and can be found here in Exodus 20:1-17. They tell us exactly what God expects from us and our behavior. We can see from these commandments that following them will please the Lord, and breaking them will cause him great heartache. Read verse 6: "But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands." Wow! He lavishes unfailing love. Think on that for a minute. Think about lavishing another human being. If money were no object, and you could lavish anything and everything on the ones you love most, that would be a tiny smidge of what God will bless us with if we follow his directions. That verse is proof of how God enjoys being pleased by people.
With that verse, I will take a break until tomorrow. Knowing God is so wonderful that I want to take two days to explore how we can know him better and know him more. In the meantime though, you can scroll back and re-read some of the names of God- another way to know him more.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

What an amazing God we have! And to think that we don't know even close to everything there is to know about Him! How great will Heaven be when we get to see Him!