The ONE thing

I guess, the best thing to share is the most essential thing:

How to Know God

Have you ever watched the sunrise,  looked deeply into the starry night sky or strolled in awe through a redwood grove? In these quiet moments, a thought may well up from your soul: Only God could create such beauty.

Most people who have experienced moments like these come away believing that there must be a God. But how does a person relate to this Creator? How do we come to know God?

The most marvelous book in the world, the Bible, marks the path to God with four vital truths. Let's look at each marker in detail.

Our Spiritual Condition: Totally Depraved?

We are sinners through and through---totally depraved. Now that doesn't mean we've committed every atrocity known to humankind. We're not as bad as we can be, just as bad off as we can be. Sin colors all our thoughts, motives, words, and actions.

Don't believe it? Look around. Everything around us bears the smudge marks of our sinful nature.  Despite our best efforts to create a perfect world, something has gone terribly wrong in our society and in us, something deadly.  People can blame politics, religion, and economics for the problems we face but the real problem is deeper than that.  Whether you look at the bad things that come from a big group of people (like a country, company or political movement) or a small one (like a family, or one person) everything comes down to the individual choices that people make.  WE (as individuals) are spiritually dead inside…and our world, our children and our own souls show the scars of the decisions we have made.

The first truth is rather personal. One look in the mirror of Scripture, and our human condition becomes painfully clear:

As it is written,

"There is none righteous, not even one;

There is none who understands,

There is none who seeks for God;

All have turned aside, together they have become useless;

There is none who does good,

There is not even one."

Romans 3:10-12

As Paul says in his letter to the Romans, "The wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23)

Our condition can’t be viewed like we’re ‘sick or ill’ and we just need a little medicine to cure us.  We are dead.  It started with the rebellion of our great-great-great…grandparents, Adam and Eve and the family curse (death to the spiritual life in God) has been passed right down to us.  Not only did we inherit this "dead condition” as a group but, as individuals, we have each sinned personally.  In our actions, thoughts and words… everything has been a downhill slide away from God from day one.

This brings us to the second marker: God's character.

God's Character: Infinitely Holy

Our very awareness that things are not as they should be points to a standard of goodness beyond ourselves. That standard is God Himself.  God's standard of holiness contrasts starkly to our sinful condition.

Scripture says that "God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5). He is absolutely righteous--which creates a problem for us. If He is so pure, how can we who are so impure relate to Him?

Perhaps we could try being better people, try to tilt the balance in favor of our good deeds. Throughout history, people have attempted to live up to God's standard by keeping the Ten Commandments. Unfortunately, no one can come close to satisfying the demands of God's law. J.B. Phillips' translation of Romans 3 states:

No man can justify himself before God by a perfect performance of the Law's demands--- indeed it is the straight-edge of the Law that shows us how crooked we are.   Romans 3:20 PHILLIPS

Our Need: A Substitute

So here we are, sinners by nature, sinners by choice, trying to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and attain a relationship with our Infinitely Perfect, Good, and Holy Creator. But every time, we fall flat on our faces. We can't live a good enough life to make up for our sin, because God's standard isn't "good enough"--it's perfection.   There is another aspect to consider, God is Infinite and the scope of our crime is infinite.

 Lets say you are an art fan and what if:

·         I was to steal one of your magazines with a picture of the Mona Lisa on the cover; we would consider this to be a minor offense.  If I gave it back, in most cases, it would be forgiven.

·        I was to steal a one of your favorite prints of the Mona Lisa.  Returning it would solve the problem but you would be upset with me for a long time.

·        I was to steal the real Mona Lisa from the museum, I would be arrested and spend time in jail.  I would be looked at as a thief but not really hated too much.

·        Now, what if I stole the Mona Lisa, destroyed it publicly and showed no remorse at all...or even laughed and bragged about it?  I would be arrested, put in jail for a long time, sued for the value and universally hated for a crime against all of mankind.  We would see news stories, and endless hours of video showing people weeping, protesting and screaming over the loss of an important masterpiece and item of great cultural importance.

What’s the big deal?  Would you throw a man in jail for life and hate him forever if you saw him cut up an old piece of cloth and throw it away?  But It’s not just "some paint on a cloth"... is it? No.  

On the surface, our sin may seem like it’s no big deal, but in context…

Our sin, is a crime of rebellion against an infinitely Good, infinitely Holy, infinitely Powerful, Infinitely Perfect, infinitely Sovereign God.  Sin again God is the ‘capital crimes’ of capital crimes.  The payment must be infinite in scope to atone for it. We can't make amends for the offense our sin has created.  A person who never sinned and was not descended from Adam might be able to get one of us off the hook by taking the punishment for one other person…but what about all the rest of us…and besides, there’s no one like that…is there?

Who can get us out of this mess?

Meet your substitute---Jesus Christ. He is the One who took death's place for you!

 [God] made [Jesus Christ] who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.   2 Corinthians 5:21

God's Provision: A Savior

God loves us and  the rescue plan involves His Son, Jesus, dying for our sins. (see 1 John 4:9-10). Jesus was fully human and fully divine, a truth that ensures His understanding of our weaknesses, His power to forgive our sins, and His ability to bridge the gap between God and us (see Romans 5:6-11). In short, we are "justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus" (Romans 3:24). Three words in this verse bear further explanation: Justified, Grace and Redemption.

Justification is God's act of mercy, in which He declares sinners (like you and me) who trust Him for Salvation, righteous, while they are still in their sinning state. Justification doesn't mean that God makes us righteous, so that we never sin again, rather He declares us righteous much like a judge pardons a guilty criminal. Because Jesus took our sin upon Himself and suffered our judgment on the cross, God forgives our debt and proclaims us PARDONED.

Grace is God's unmerited favor.  In other words, God chose to love us, bless us and extend His goodwill towards us without us doing anything to earn or deserve it.  It comes as a choice on God's part  and not because of race, nationality, gender or anything else. You are incapable of being good or holy enough to earn God's grace.  He JUST DID IT.

Redemption is God's act of paying the ransom price to release us from our bondage to sin.  We were shackled by the iron chains of sin and death but Jesus willingly paid the ransom. And what a price He paid!  Because the crime of our sins are committed against an Infinitely Holy and Infinitely Powerful God the punishment could only be satisfied in an eternity of punishment (Hell) or the punishment of an eternal being, Jesus.  The price for all the sins of those who believe: past, present, and future were paid for by God Himself. Jesus' death and resurrection broke our chains and set us free.

And it gets better.  Now God declares that those who believe are now adopted as His children. (See Romans 6:16-18, 22; Galatians 4:4-7).

Placing Your Faith in Christ

These four truths describe how God has provided a way to Himself through Jesus Christ. But God won't force us to follow it. He won't drag us down a path we don't want to go. It's our decision to step forward into a relationship with Him, and we do so in faith.

        For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast. Ephesians 2:8-9                                                                                  

Try this passage:  maybe this will clear it up a little:

4 If you're a hard worker and do a good job, you deserve your pay; we don't call your wages a gift.  5But if you see that the job is too big for you, that it's something only God can do, and you trust him to do it--you could never do it for yourself no matter how hard and long you worked— Well, that ‘trusting-him-to-do-it’ is what gets you set right with God, by God.  It is a GIFT.   Romans 4:4-5 (The Message) 

We accept God's gift of salvation simply by placing our faith (complete trust) in Christ alone for the forgiveness of our sins.

Would you like to enter a relationship with your Creator by trusting in Christ as your Savior?

If so, then believe.  Take God at His word.

Here's a simple prayer you can use to express your faith:

Dear God,

I don’t understand everything right now but I know that I am a sinner.  I know that because you are always good and do what is right, you must punish sin and that means that as a sinner I deserve death and separation from you. Thank you for sending Jesus to die in my place. I trust in Jesus alone to forgive my sins and accept His gift of eternal life.  I understand that I could never do anything to deserve this gift; you did it all because you love me.  I ask Jesus to be my personal Savior and the Lord of my life.  Help me to learn more about you and to understand the Bible. Lord, lead me to other people who love you and help me to become who you want me to be.

Thank You. In Jesus' name, amen

If you've prayed this prayer and you wish to find out more about knowing God and His plan for you in the Bible, contact me.  I will help you find a good church near you where you can learn more about your Heavenly Father.

The next time you ponder a starry sky or admire a sunrise, consider the One who created our wonderful world. You know Him personally and He loves YOU.