4 I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. John 17:4 (NIV)
Knowing God through experience is radically different than knowing about God from a theology textbook. According to the Bible, you cannot say you know God unless you have experienced Him (Phil. 3:8,10). Biblical knowledge always involves experience.
Jesus' prayer was that you would come to know God and His presence in your life experience. Don't discount God's power as described in the Scriptures just because you have not personally experienced it. Don't settle for a head knowledge of God's love Jesus prayed that you would experience the depth and width and height of his love and that you would enjoy God's full and unending love in the day-to-day experiences of your life.- Experiencing God-Henry Blackaby
"And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God. and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." John 17:3
What a powerful verse that so often gets overlooked! In this verse we see the key to the entrance into the Kingdom. It is revealed to us in the word, "know", it means a relationship. Many years ago I struggled trying to understand what it was that I had to do to get into Heaven. Was it about how good I was or wasn't? Did it resemble a score sheet where I needed to have just more good deeds then bad deeds over the course of my life? Maybe it was the total amount of trips to Church and how involved I was that made the finally determination. No! It would be about my relationship with God that would be the tipping point.
As I began my research into this topic I found that every time Jesus spoke about who was going to be in the Kingdom versus who would not be there, it was always in the framework of a relationship. Let me give you one prime example of what I am talking about in support of the Scripture for today that I shared earlier:
Matt. 7: 21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ NKJV
Did you catch what this says?!?! Many will bring up all the things they have done that appear to be tremendous works for the Savior but what does Jesus say? He tells them they missed the whole point behind what was supposed to be the reason for all of their great works: "I never knew you, depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!"
Those people did all the right things but they never stopped long enough to do the FIRST thing that needed to be done, build a relationship with Jesus! Without the relationship spurring on the good works through faith, all those things were done simply to make the person look good, not Jesus.
Jesus wants to have an amazing faith building, works spawning, Kingdom purposed relationship with each of us. I encourage you today to build your relationship with you Father and make it the focus of every day of your life. Maybe a little prayer like this might work:
"Father, I know that in and of myself I am nothing. Without you I can never be all that you would have me to be. Please cleanse me and make me whole and show me the areas of my life I need to release so you and I can have the closest relationship possible. Let my good deeds be because of your working through me, and not of just myself. Show me O God and I will follow!"
Remember: God's Got This!!!