You can know God! You can have a real, vital, living relationship with the eternal God, the creator and Lord the universe. You can talk to him. You can relate to him as father. Now that is an enticing proposition. We are all eager to have a relationship with God.
But, we too often think that we need to establish and maintain this communion just as we do other relationships. We need to start the relationship. “Clean up my life and give my heart to Jesus.” I need an introduction somehow. I must prove that I am useful to God, I need to offer him something. “I can scratch your back, if you will scratch mine.” Most relationships are a means to another end. Friends are our ticket into the right crowd, or they will open doors for my career.
We think of relating to God in utilitarian terms. If I know God I will receive forgiveness and go to heaven when I die. So, Knowing God is useful, beneficial. He gives gifts to me – blessings. He is a means to another end.
We think that we maintain our relationship with God with submission and obedience. If I am good, God will bless me. If I serve Him, he will have my back. If I make sacrifices for God, he will owe me one. Too many have a cause and effect agreement with God.
But truly knowing God turns this all around. It is God that initiates the relationship. We are not ‘useful’ to God. That is not why he befriends us. Early in Genesis when all men had descended deeply into sin and “the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5, 8), “Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.” That word ‘favor’ means grace. God was not responding to Noah’s good works, faith, or sacrifice, he simply gave him grace. That was the foundation of the relationship.
God asked Noah to respond to his grace, not earn it. The unmerited grace and one-sided favor of God transforms us. Knowing God in this way, we respond with joy and gratitude to his love and kindness, but we do not merit it. And, therefore, we cannot lose it. When God claims you as his friend, no one can take you out of his hand. Grace is forever. That forever commitment from God releases, calms, encourages, stabilizes, and empowers us to live a life of gratitude. It is God who begins and maintains his friendship with us – that is life in God’s Covenant – so that we respond in love, kindness, thanksgiving and praise to God for what He has done for us.
Do you want to know God? He invites you to respond to his mighty grace. You have found favor with God.