“Jesus answered, “If I want glory for myself, it doesn’t count. But it is my Father who will glorify me. You say, ‘He is our God,’ but you don’t even know him. I know him. If I said otherwise, I would be as great a liar as you! But I do know him and obey him. Your father Abraham rejoiced as he looked forward to my coming. He saw it and was glad.””
John 8:54-56 NLT
Jesus told the Pharisees and other religious leaders in the crowd listening to Him that they don’t even know God. The religious people in Jesus’ day probably knew a lot about God but had never come to know Him personally. They had this sense of pride in their knowledge of their Bible. They could recite huge tracts of Scripture. They knew all the rules and regulations, and the Laws of Moses, like the backs of their hands. They lived their lives in a way that was, to them, above reproach. God to them was measurable and containable, kept in a box bounded by their knowledge. And the other less tangible parts of a relationship with God were rationalised within the limits of their knowledge about Him.
But when it comes to knowing God, the same accusation could be levelled at many religious people today. They think that they are “good” people because they keep the laws of the land, give money to charities, go to church on a Sunday every now and then, and don’t curse and drink to excess. They don’t beat and abuse their spouses and work hard at their professions. “Surely God likes me and would never reject me when it comes to matters of eternal life”, or so they think.
But Jesus was very clear during His time here on earth, that there was only one way to please Father God, and that was by believing in Him. We of course know John 3:16, “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” Later Jesus said to Thomas, one of His disciples, “ … I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is. From now on, you do know him and have seen him” (John 14:6-7).
But believing in Jesus does not mean believing the facts about Jesus. It is believing that He came to this world to die for sinners, past, present and future, in His death taking on the punishment for our sin, and instead giving us His righteousness. In the process we come to love Him personally because the enormity of what He did for us at Calvary sinks deep within our souls. The understanding that Jesus, the Son of God, loved me so much that He was willing to die in my place, and that through Him I will receive the gift of eternal life, has turned my life around from being a detached and uninvolved “believer” into someone who knows God as a loving Father. My life is now not about being a “good” person, but about living a life pleasing to the One who loves me. Yes, the fruit of that will be goodness, but that comes from, not for, a relationship with God.
The Pharisees knew much about God. But they were unable to do what Paul did. About the Pharisaical obedience to the Law, he wrote in Philippians 3:7-9, “I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith”. The Pharisees before Jesus that day in the Temple had an opportunity to believe in Him, but missed it. We must make sure that we don’t miss it either, by taking subtle steps towards replacing our relationship with God with a liturgy that takes less effort.
Dear Father God. We love You because You first loved us. We worship at Your feet today. Amen.
Being a Pilgrim 