about . . . knowing God

Life, with all of its simplicity and complexity, its predictability and surprises, is, above all, about the human quest to know God.

Healthy human relationships, positive social interaction, right thinking and living, and genuine self-understanding all spring from a proper relationship with God. This does not mean that those who, in one form or another, deny the true God are void of these benefits, but that these can be optimally experienced by those united to Him.

The problem, however, is that our ability to approach God has been blocked by our own improprieties and imperfections. Both the Bible and our own experiences teach us that something isn’t right between human beings and their Maker. We believe that the best and only true and lasting way to rectify this situation is through contact, by faith, with God’s special emissary, Jesus. By trusting in him and what he accomplished through his life, death, and resurrection, we are brought into a right relationship with God.

Of course all of this implies that we cannot please God or find favor in his sight through our own achievements, religious or otherwise. The reasons for this are simple: God is far greater that we’ve imagined, and we are more corrupt than we’d like to admit. Being in such a predicament, it is wonderful to discover that God does not require that we attempt to impress him with our “good works” but that we simply look to Jesus, who alone is completely good and who did impress God. A person connects with God not by human effort but by faith in Jesus alone.