Do you know God?

80% of Americans claim to be Christians.

That means if you walked up to just about anyone and asked them ‘do you know God?’…they should say yes. Most likely would say yes.

But do they?

And if they do…what god do they know? Is it the God of the Bible or is it the god that soothes their consciences and supports the kind of life they want to live?

I recently listened to a sermon where the preacher explained it pretty well. He said something to the effect of if you walk up to someone happily living for their own happiness and tell them God loves them and wants only good things for them then ask them if they want to go to Heaven they will almost always say yes.

Why?

Because they want only good things for themselves. And if God wants to give them good things…then yes they want to ask Jesus into their hearts.

Not all professing believers are this way. I know because I have attended many ‘church’ buildings with many professing Christians and there are about as many different reasons why someone ‘chooses’ to believe in Jesus as there are people in those ‘church’ buildings. Some of them wanted to believe in Jesus so He could be there when they needed Him, some wanted Him to see them through their trials, some wanted Him out of fear, some out of….whatever reason.

But most of them have one thing in common…they want to make the God that they believe in fit their life. If they enjoy watching secular TV they believe God is okay with that. If they lie, they believe God forgives it and so it’s okay to do it again and again.

From personal experience, having been friends and family to a number of professing ‘Christians’, having been one myself, I can say that most don’t get that far. Most don’t give God enough thought to wonder if He’s okay with the movies they watch, or if He cares that they lie daily. There simply is no reason too. They’ve been told by whichever ‘Christian’ led them to Jesus that the prayer they prayed admitting Jesus is the Son of God and asking Him into their hearts was all they needed.

Now they can go to ‘Church’ or not, they can clean up their language or not, they can stop lying or not. They can…in effect…do anything they want. And it’s okay. If they give any thought to the fact that they may be living in a way God wouldn’t be happy about they’re covered. They got a one way ticket into Heaven and it cannot be revoked. They’re covered. Their insurance premium is paid. Their get out of jail card is held firmly in their hand. Their plane ticket is secure.

They’re going to Heaven.

They’re ‘Christians.’

But…Do they know God?

I long ago gave up all belief in the prayer I prayed when I was six getting me into Heaven. What I did that day did nothing to secure my future. At best it planted a seed, or watered a seed, that would one day grow into a stronger faith. My faith is different than most of the professing ‘Christians’ I have known…and still I do not feel that I know God.

I feel close to Him. I love Him. He is my Lord. He rules my life. He holds my very being in His hands. But I do not feel I know Him.

I wake up every day feeling Him in my soul, in my heart. He is there in everything I do, in every thought I have, in every feeling I have, in every relationship I have. He is there because He is the biggest thing in me. But I do not feel I know Him.

Or maybe I should say…I do not feel that I know enough of Him.

My soul yearns to know more. It is an ache inside me. A pain that begs to be eased but there is nothing to ease it because the only cure is knowing more about Christ and the more I know the more I want to know.

It’s a never satisfied hunger.

An insatiable desire that cannot be quenched.

And 80% of the American population claim to be ‘Christians’, they…in effect…say they know God. Yet many of them go on doing the things that God hates. Some of them turn from being ‘Christians’ to Jews or Muslims. They change their title of ‘Christian’ as easy as they change their socks.

They claim to know God one minute then deny Him the next.

I’m not saying they are all this way, but many of them are. I know there are exceptions. I’m not talking about the Christians that are the exceptions. I’m talking about the one’s that aren’t.

I have a relative that does not believe in God. Their stance isn’t about Christ, it isn’t about Jesus, it is about God. They do not believe in God. I always thought that if a person didn’t believe in God it was because they couldn’t. One day, several years ago, I was talking to this relative and much to my shock was told that this person would not believe in God if He came down from Heaven, stood in front of them, and told them He was real.

My mind couldn’t grasp that. I believe in God, in Christ, on faith and faith alone. And here this person was telling me that if God stood in front of them they would not believe.

They would not believe.

It wasn’t about whether or not they could believe…it was about whether or not they would.

If you can’t believe then you are without the capability to do so but if you won’t believe than you are refusing to do so.

That so shocked me I didn’t know what to do, what to say. This was big. It was huge. It was a whole new way of thought for me at that time. I had heard people say they couldn’t believe in God before, had heard people say they believed in God but didn’t believe in Jesus, but never before had I heard someone say that even with irrefutable proof they would not believe.

I asked them why? Why, if God was standing before you, would you refuse to believe? And their answer amazed me. It was, quite honestly, a well thought out answer. It made sense.

They said they would not believe because they could never love a God that killed innocent babies, a God that sent plagues on innocent people, a God that would let a murderer into Heaven if they said they were sorry and prayed a prayer to accept Jesus.

But those answers only make sense if you only know the God that’s taught in a lot of ‘Church’ buildings. That was the God I knew at that time. It was the God that I had been taught to believe in all my life. The things this person was saying made sense in light of the teachings in every Sunday school class I had ever been in, in every sermon I had ever heard…at that time.

The way the gospel was presented in my life, in this relatives life, did show God to be an all loving God today that was wrathful and vengeful…and unjust in Biblical times. He punished people without cause, took the lives of innocent babies and children to hurt others. That same God is the God that these ‘church’ buildings are teaching loves everyone and is waiting with open arms for them to say…yes, I believe in you, come live in my heart.’ And without asking anything else He gladly accepts them, requiring nothing of them but what they want to give. This is the same God that just as willingly accepts a murderer just because He prays that same prayer.

And I didn’t know how to respond to that. At that time I couldn’t see Scripture the way I do now, didn’t understand God’s ways the way I do now. And I know that there is still so much that I don’t know, don’t understand.

But I know one thing…Scripture tells us…

Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, Hebrews 3:8

I also know that there’s a big difference in not being able to believe in God and refusing to believe in God. Both have at their root a lack of faith but one has the inability to believe while the other has the refusal to do so.

And refusing to believe is very much a hardened heart. I could see that in this relative. I could see that this person’s heart was hard to the things and ways of God. I had no ground to stand on, everything I said was like dropping seeds on rock. This person could understand what I was saying but they refused to believe in any of it.

I know now that whether they can’t believe or they won’t believe it all rests in the Lords hands.

“He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.” John 12:40

The Lord may someday open their hearts and eyes or He may leave them the way they are but whatever He does…it is His decision to make.

It still hurts my human heart though. I ache for this person, and others, even when they can’t hurt for themselves. Because I know… Because I can see and understand. I know that they can’t just change their minds, can’t just decide to believe. The Lord must draw them to Him. But I know too what Scripture says about those that aren’t His.

But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. Romans 2:5

But this person who will not believe probably wouldn’t be one of the people that would answer yes if you asked them if they know God.

It’s all the people that claim to know God and yet live as if He doesn’t exist, as if He never gave them a rule to follow, those are the people that I just want to ask ‘what God do you know?’

The relative that doesn’t believe in God has a belief in their own god. I asked them one day…what has your god done for you?

And I got no answer.

This person may not be able to say what their god did for them but they aren’t claiming to know God either.

If I walked into the ‘church’ building I occasionally attend and asked pretty much anyone in there ‘do you know God?’ I’m pretty sure they would all say yes. Because they all feel that they do. If I questioned them further, asked them to tell me what they know about God, I’m sure I would get mixed answers with some Truth’s and a whole lot of inaccurate assumptions.

Because they don’t know the God of the Bible.

They don’t know God as He is, they know Him as they want Him to be. And they’re all pretty sure they know the real God.

What God do you know?