ALIEN NATION 3

“I find it shelter to speak to you.” — Emily Dickinson

Isaiah 59:1-3
Isaiah 55:1-3
Jeremiah 15 (esp. 15-21)

Now for the big question. How do we get right with God? How do we fix the relationship that has always felt a little off, a little broken?

The disclaimer is this: we’re dealing in big matters, matters some would call divine. Despite our attempt to grasp everything we want to know, mystery will persist.

I’d love to offer you a program, like QuickBooks for your PC. A quaint equation like e=mc2 would also prove handy. I don’t have that. None of us receive such easy answers when trying to correct issues with God. Maybe we claim to have the formula, but it ultimately shrinks our God.

He’s a person. People are complicated enough. So imagine the sophistication of an omniscient God.

John wrote his gospel with a keen eye toward knowing Jesus and knowing God. Look at some of the things he records Jesus saying.

“This work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” (6:29)

“My teaching is not my own. It comes from him who sent me.” (7:16)

“I am not here on my own, but he who sent me … You do not know him, but I know him because I am from him and he sent me.” (7:28,29)

“You do not know me or my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” (8:19)

“If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own, but he sent me.” (8:42)

“Don’t you know me, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father …. Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and that the Father is in me?” (14:9,10)

Jesus keeps saying these things about himself and about God.

He says, “God wants you to listen to me. I am his messenger. If you know me and listen to me, you’ll know God. Come to know me that you might know God.”

I’ve heard someone say that people can only take you where they’ve been. If they haven’t been someplace, they cannot take you there. Jesus says he’s been there, that he is there. If we want to get there too, Jesus must take us. But we must come to know him, a person. Formulas and programs won’t do it.

He is the way.

How do you think Jesus shows us God?
How do you know Jesus better?
Why should we get to know God?

Adam