| How to Know God |
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The following principles will help you discover how to know God personally. God LOVES you and offers a wonderful PLAN for your life. God's Love: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16 NIV). God's Plan: [Christ speaking] "…I have come in order that you might have life - life in all its fullness" (John 10:10 TEV). Why is it that most people are not experiencing the abundant life?People are SINFUL and SEPARATED from God. Therefore, we cannot know and experience God's love and plan for our lives.People are Sinful: "For all have sinned; all fall short of God's glorious standard." (Romans 3:23 NLT). People were created to have a relationship with God. But, because of our tendency toward independence, we chose to go our own independent way. When this happened, our community with God was broken. This self-will, characterized by an attitude of active rebellion or passive indifference, is an evidence of what the Bible calls sin. Sin simply means that we fall short of God's standard. None of us are perfect. All of us go our own way and sin. People are Separated: "…the wages of sin is death…" [spiritual separation from God] (Romans 6:23 NIV).  This diagram illustrates that God is holy and people are sinful. A great gulf separates the two. The arrows illustrate that people are continually trying to reach God and the abundant life through their own efforts, such as a good life, philosophy, or religion - but they inevitably fail. How do people connect with God?Jesus Christ is God's ONLY provision for people's sin. Through him we can know and experience God's love and plan for our life. He Died in Our Place: "But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners." (Romans 5:8 NLT). This is very important. Because God is just and holy, he must deal with sin. However, because God is loving and merciful, he must love people even though they sin. God doesn't condone our sin; nor does he compromise his standard. Rather than dismiss our sin he assumes our sin and, incredibly, sentences himself. This way, the demands of his justice for sin and his demands of love for us are all met at the same time and in the same event, the cross. The price for our sins was paid by God, himself! He Rose From the Dead: "3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred..." (1 Corinthians 15:3-6 NIV). He arose from the dead to demonstrate his power over sin and death and to secure the eternal salvation of those who would believe in him. He Is the Only Way to God: "Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'" (John 14:6 NIV). We know God by receiving Jesus Christ. The answer is not us trying to reach up to God through our own efforts, but God reaching down to us through his Son Jesus Christ. This diagram illustrates that God has bridged the gulf which separates us from him by sending his Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross in our place to pay the penalty for our sins. We are saved, not by our goodness, but God's grace. Is knowing all this enough?It is not enough just to know all this. We must individually RECEIVE Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; then we can know and experience God's love and plan for our lives. We Must Receive Christ: "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God" (John 1:12 NIV). We Receive Christ Through Faith: "8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - 9 not by works, so that no one can boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9 NIV). When We Receive Christ, We Experience a New Birth: "6 A person is born physically of human parents, but is born spiritually of the Spirit. 7 Do not be surprised because I tell you that you must all be born again" (John 3:6-7 TEV). We Receive Christ by Personal Invitation: [Christ speaking] "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me" (Revelation 3:20 NIV). Receiving Christ involves turning to God from self (repentance) and trusting Christ to come into our lives to forgive our sins and to make us what he wants us to be. Just to agree intellectually that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that he died on the cross for our sins is not enough. Nor is it enough to have an emotional experience. We receive Jesus Christ by faith, as an act of the will. These two circles represent two kinds of lives:
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