Archive article 48

 

“ This is eternal life – that they know you, the only true God ”

 

Doctor James Sheen has now retired but even though more than 40 years have passed I still recall vividly his warning to us. I was in Seminary and his first words to us were; “I’m a doctor. People come to me because they are ill and I know medicine. People will come to you because you know God and they need His help. ”

 

So true. If want to learn to drive a car, where do I go? To a Driver’s Training School? If I need food, where do I go? The grocery shop. If I’m sick, I go to the doctor. If I want to know God – where do I go? To a church.

 

Today, as pastor of a church, I know that any person who comes to our church needs only one thing – to know God. Mine is the privilege of explaining “how”. And that’s not a question of technique. Just as a doctor, if he’s going to really cure his patient, can’t use quick fixes, neither can a pastor conjure up quick options for serious problems. Every person must have his or her own relationship with the living God.

 

I do know, however, that many people, after they’ve gone to the doctor don’t do what he prescribes. If it’s a question of pills, they maybe take one or two hoping for some special healing effect. But if the doctor’s requiring them to change a habit and stop doing certain things, especially if they are things the patient likes, there’s always an excuse to not change. If he’s asked them to do something that requires effort, the normal procedure is to do it for a day or two and then find a reason to not have to do it.

 

It’s like that with God, too. And not only today! Even in Jesus times there were young men coming to him saying they would like to follow Him, but when He explained that to be a disciple would mean leaving your home and life security systems, they backed down.

(The Gospel of Luke 9:57-62).

 

Dear reader, let me assure you, I don’t know of a higher privilege than to know our Lord Jesus.

 

A prominent Italian journalist, Indro Montanelli, who died not too long ago, would also speak of these things. You’d often hear him speak of grace as something that he, too, really wanted to experience. He knew that life was very transitory and that those who had faith had a treasure which was beyond any human cost. I remember very well how, in a television interview, he almost likened faith to one of Jesus’ parables:

 

“The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”

(The Gospel of Matthew 13:45-46)

 

He had clearly understood how the most precious thing in life was to know God!

He wasn’t wrong. Many years ago, a dear friend expressed this once to me when she said: “Paul, all my life I’ve been looking for this thread of grace, and I’m not going to let it go now.”  

 

In life everything passes. Only what has its roots deep in God will not pass. To know God personally is the most precious gift anyone could ever have.

That’s why, every Sunday morning, when we meet as a church we bury ourselves in the treasures of God’s Word (in these weeks, the Gospel of John) – exactly the way Jim Sheen had told us to do – to know God more than anything else and to share that knowledge with a society searching for meaning and truth.

 

Come and join us in this exciting adventure!

  

Pastor Paul Finch,