If You Want to Know God You Have to Talk to Him

How can I know God?

What is Christianity? Some say it is a philosophy, others say it is an ethical stance, while however others claim it is actually an experience. None of these things actually gets to the heart of the matter, however. Each is something a Christian has, but not i of them serves equally a definition of what a Christian is. Christianity has at its core a transaction between a person and God. A person who becomes a Christian moves from knowing about God distantly to knowing nearly him directly and intimately. Christianity is knowing God.

"Now this is eternal life; that they may know you lot, the only truthful God, and Jesus Christ, whom you accept sent." –John 17:3

Why do I demand to know God?

Our desire for personal knowledge of God is stiff, just we usually fail to recognize that want for what it is. When we outset autumn in love, when we first marry, when we finally break into our chosen field, when nosotros at last get that weekend firm — these breakthroughs arouse in us anticipation of something which, every bit it turns out, never occurs. We somewhen find that our desire for that precious something is a longing no lover or career or achievement, even the best possible ones, tin always satisfy. The satisfaction fades fifty-fifty as we shut our fingers around our goal. Nothing delivers the joy information technology seemed to promise. Many of us avert the yawning emptiness through busyness or denial, merely at best there is just a postponement. "Naught tastes," said Marie Antoinette.

There are several means to answer to this:

By blaming the things themselves

by finding fault in anybody and everything around you. You lot believe that a ameliorate spouse, a better career, a amend dominate or salary would finally yield the elusive joy. Many of the nearly successful people of the world are similar this — bored, discontented, running from new thing to new thing, oft-changing counselors, mates, partners, or settings.

Past blaming yourself

by trying harder to live up to standards. Many people believe they have made poor choices or take failed to mensurate up to challenges and to achieve the things that would give them joy and satisfaction. Such people are wracked with cocky-doubts and tend to burn down themselves out. They think, "If only I could reach my goals, and then this emptiness would be gone." Only it is not so.

By blaming the universe itself

by giving upwards seeking fulfillment at all. This is the person who says, "Yeah, when I was young I was idealistic, just at my age I have stopped howling later on the moon." This makes you get contemptuous, y'all decide to repress that part of yourself that once wanted fulfillment and joy. Simply you become hard, and y'all can feel yourself losing your humanity, compassion, and joy.

By blaming and recognizing your separation from God

by seeing that the emptiness comes from your separation from God, and by establishing a personal human relationship with him.

In order to form a personal human relationship with God, you must know 3 things:

1.) Who we are:

God'south creation. God created us and built u.s. for a human relationship with him. We belong to him, and we owe him gratitude for every breath, every moment, everything. Considering humans were built to live for him (to worship), we will e'er try to worship something — if not God, we volition choose some other object of ultimate devotion to requite our lives meaning.

Sinners. We have all chosen (and re-affirm daily) to reject God and to brand our own joy and happiness our highest priority. Nosotros do not want to worship God and surrender ourselves as main, yet we are built to worship, and then we cling to idols, centering our lives on things that promise to give united states of america meaning: success, relationships, influence, love, comfort, and so on.

In spiritual bondage. To alive for annihilation else only God leads to breakdown and decay. When a fish leaves the h2o, which he was congenital for, he is not free, but dead. Worshiping other things besides God leads to a loss of significant. If nosotros achieve these things, they cannot deliver satisfaction, considering they were never meant to exist "gods." They were never meant to supercede God. Worshiping other things too God too leads to cocky- paradigm problems. Nosotros terminate up defining ourselves in terms of our accomplishment in these things. We must have them or all is lost; then they drive united states of america to work likewise difficult, or they fill u.s. with terror if they are jeopardized.

2.) Who God is:

Love and justice. His active business organization is for our joy and well-being. Most people love those who love them, all the same God loves and seeks the expert even of people who are his enemies. But considering God is good and loving, he cannot tolerate evil. The reverse of love is not acrimony, but indifference. "The more than you love your son, the more you detest in him the liar, the drunkard, the traitor," (E. Gifford). To imagine God's state of affairs, imagine a judge who also is a father, who sits at the trial of his guilty son. A guess knows he cannot permit his son go, for without justice no lodge tin survive. How much less can a loving God but ignore or suspend justice for us — who are loved, yet guilty of rebellion against his loving authority?

Jesus Christ. Jesus is God himself come to World. He first lived a perfect life, loving God with all his center, soul, and mind, fulfilling all human obligation to God. He lived the life you owed — a perfect tape. And so, instead of receiving his deserved reward (eternal life), Jesus gave his life as a cede for our sins, taking the punishment and death each of us owed. When nosotros believe in him: 1) our sins are paid for by his death, and two) his perfect life record is transferred to our account. Then God accepts and regards usa equally if we take washed all Christ has done.

3.) What yous must do:

Repent. There first must exist an admission that you have been living equally your own primary, worshipping the wrong things, violating God's loving laws. "Repentance" means yous enquire forgiveness and turn from that stance with a willingness to live for and center on him.

Believe. Faith is transferring your trust from your own efforts to the efforts of Christ. Yous were relying on other things to make you acceptable, merely now you consciously begin relying on what Jesus did for your acceptance with God. All you demand is nothing. If yous remember, "God owes me something for all my efforts," you lot are still on the exterior.

Pray subsequently this style: "I encounter I am more flawed and sinful than I ever dared believe, but that I am even more than loved and accepted than I ever dared hope. I turn from my old life of living for myself. I have nothing in my record to merit your approval, but I now rest in what Jesus did and ask to be accepted into God'south family unit for his sake." When you brand this transaction, two things happen at in one case: 1) your accounts are cleared, your sins are wiped out permanently, y'all are adopted legally into God'south family unit and 2) the Holy Spirit enters your center and begins to alter you into the character of Jesus.

Follow through. Tell a Christian friend about your delivery. Get yourself training in the basic Christian disciplines of prayer, worship, Bible written report, and fellowship with other Christians.

Why should I seek God?

On 1 paw, yous may feel that you "need" him. Even though you may recognize that you have needs merely God can meet, you must not try to use him to achieve your own ends. It is non possible to bargain with God. ("I'll do this if you will practise that.") That is not Christianity at all, but a course of magic or paganism in which yous "appease" the cranky deity in exchange for a favor. Are yous getting into Christianity to serve God, or to get God to serve y'all? Those are two contrary motives and they result in two different religions. You must come up to God because 1) you owe information technology to him to give him your life (because he is your creator) and two) yous are deeply grateful to him for sacrificing his son (because he is your redeemer.)

On the other manus, you may experience no need or involvement to know God at all. This does not mean you should stay uncommitted. If you were created past God, then you owe him your life, whether you feel like it or non. You are obligated to seek him and enquire him to soften your heart, open your eyes, and enlighten you. If yous say, "I have no organized religion," that is no excuse either. You demand but dubiousness your doubts. No one can dubiousness everything at once — you must believe in something to doubt something else. For example, do yous believe you lot are competent to run your own life? Where is the evidence of that? Why doubt everything merely your doubts about God and your organized religion in yourself? Is that fair? You owe it to God to seek him. Exercise so.

What if I'one thousand not ready to go along?

Make a list of the issues that you lot perceive to be barriers to your crossing the line into faith. Here is a possible set of headings:

• Content issues. Do yous understand the basics of the Christian message — sin, Jesus every bit God, sacrifice, faith?

• Coherence issues. Are at that place intellectual issues you lot have with Christianity? Are there objections to the Christian religion that y'all cannot resolve in your own heed?

• Toll issues. Do yous perceive that a move into full Christian organized religion volition toll you dearly? What fears practise yous have about commitment?

Now talk to a Christian friend until these bug are resolved.

Can I Really Trust The Bible?

The Bible makes big claims for itself. But do those claims stand upward?

Aren't the stories but legends? Hasn't the data been corrupted over time? Isn't the Bible full of mistakes? And isn't it culturally outdated?

In this absorbing little book, Barry Cooper explores these questions – and many others – with warmth, wit and integrity.

Part of the Questions Christians Inquire series: a range of short, elementary books designed to assist Christians understand what God has said about these questions and many more in the Bible.

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Source: https://haventoday.org/knowing-god/