Up Close and Personal

                How seriously do we take the truth that God is present in our lives? It is so easy for us to live day by day as if God is not around. It isn’t that we don’t believe in God, it’s that we don’t really think about God. It is like the old saying “Out of sight, out of mind.” We can go through an entire week with little or no thought of God’s active presence. Then we come to Sunday and, for a very short time, acknowledge Him.

                One of the greatest truths of our faith is that God is not distant or detached from our world or our lives. God did not create this world, set it in motions and then go on vacation. God is an active participant in our world, whether we acknowledge His presence or not.

                Our very existence is sustained by the power of God. When Paul debated with the intellectuals of his day in Athens he pointed to the overshadowing presence of God. "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.  And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'” Acts 17:24-28 (NIV)

                So in a general sense God is actively present in the life of every human being on the face of the planet. But there is a more important truth here. We do not have to live in ignorance of God. In fact, we can have a very personal relationship with Him through Jesus Christ. We don’t have to view God as the great unknown. Instead we can know Him! That was the message Paul brought to the men of Athens.

                Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. Acts 17:22-23 (NIV)

                The Triune God of the universe wants to have an ongoing, personal relationship with us. Jesus opened that door through his death and resurrection. The Holy Spirit has come to make that relationship real to us. God wants to speak into our lives every day, not just on Sundays. So what does it mean to have a personal relationship with God through Jesus?

                We can discover clues to what it means to have a personal relationship with God by examining our human relationships. A personal relationship begins by getting to know the other person. As long as God remains at a distance we will never get to know Him. We get to know about God through what he has created. Paul tells us that creation is our first clue to the personality of God. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. Romans 1:20 (NIV) But examining creation is not enough. It can help us understand some things about God, but it cannot really help us know God.

                God has given us two ways to move beyond knowledge about God to knowing God. The first is the Bible. The Bible is God’s instrument to speak directly to us. It is His e-mail or text message from heaven. In the Bible God shares His heart. He invites us to draw close to Him. The second way is through Jesus. Jesus clearly said that he came to bridge the gap between us and the Father. In Jesus the unknowable became knowable. Jesus is the physical embodiment of God.

                But there is another critical aspect of developing a personal relationship. We have to spend intentional time with the other person. It is not enough to be in the same room or observe that person from a distance. We have to take the risk to get close, to open our lives to the other person. We do this with God through reading His word and prayer. When we discipline ourselves to spend time every day listening to God through His word and speaking with God through prayer we really get to know the heart of God. He begins to speak truth into our lives and transforms us; restoring His image within us.

                But I am not done. Another aspect of developing a personal relationship is actively getting involved in the other person’s life. When we share life experiences we develop a bond. When we are willing to risk trying something new for the sake of the other person we build trust. The same is true with God. It is when we actively obey Him in loving service that we truly discover the bond He desires to develop between us.

                Deep down all of us have the desire to know and be known. That is the kind of relationship God wants to have with us. He doesn’t want us to worship Him from a distance, in some formal way. He wants us to get close to Him so that we can fully experience His love.