How to Find God

One hundred years from now, none of us will be here. By that time, each of us will have had their personal moment before God. What will that be like? Is God some kind of old, loving, forgiving Grandpa? Is He all judgement and no compassion.? Most people avoid these thoughts their entire lives. In fact, I believe that I can fully answer these questions.

But you say. "Nobody knows for sure what that moment will be like!" Well, I disagree. Not only do I disagree, but I believe that I can prove to you pretty much what will take place at that moment, and more specifically even, what your two principal thoughts will be as you stand before Almighty God. I won’t keep you in suspense. Here they are:

"I HAVE GREATLY UNDERESTIMATED THE HOLINESS OF GOD."

"I HAVE GREATLY OVERESTIMATED MY OWN RIGHTEOUSNESS."

Now this may surprise you, but in my proving to you that this is in fact what will happen when we die, I am going to appeal to your REASON, and not your FAITH. There are two reasons why the two statements above will always withstand the doubter’s perspective:

 

1. Every one of the Bible characters that has ever come face to face with God has had that exact reaction: they have fallen on their face in an act of utter contrition, guilt, humility and conviction. (Moses, Jeremiah, John, Paul, just to name a few.)

2. In order to dismiss the validity of those accounts, we have to do no less than dismiss or discredit the entire Bible. This is something that cannot follow a rational course and is always tainted with a personal agenda, for the evidences for the Bible’s historical accuracy from the field of archaeology alone runs into the tens of thousands. More come to us from the physical sciences. The number of scientific contraindications to the Bible’s historical accuracy stands at zero. The Bible provides an extraordinarily credible account of how to find God. (He has no desire to remain hidden from any of us.)

My personal view, based on 25 years of dealing with those who have rejected the Bible, and listening to their arguments is this: PEOPLE REJECT THE BIBLE BECAUSE IT CONTRADICTS THEIR SINFUL LIFESTYLE, THEN THEY FABRICATE A PLAUSIBLE, INTELLECTUAL RATIONALE FOR THEIR REJECTION. I am in some pretty good company with this view. Jesus Himself put it this way: "Men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." (John 3:19) He said in this same conversation that a determinedly sinful man rejects the light of truth and runs from it, "...lest his deeds should be reproved."

So how does one then go about coming to God? Yes, I know, all religions claim that theirs is the only way. So how can we tell which one really is? Why has there been so much disagreement and even wars and bloodshed throughout history over this one issue? Can God really expect us to get it right on our own? Whom do we trust? What do we believe? Who has it right?

Well, I don’t feel that I can ask you to take that one giant step of faith based on my say-so. I am however, going to try to present my faith on the basis of a logical and almost entirely intellectual series of statements. That way we can get to the very doorstep of a real and personal belief in a living God without turning off our brains. Be forewarned though, if you should in the end reject the ultimate conclusion of this argument, you will not be able to reject it in an intellectually honest manner. You will probably respond in the way that a determined and intellectually dishonest unbeliever always responds: "I don’t care what you say, I don’t believe . . . " If you think that could be you, then I would respectfully suggest that it is in your best interest to stop reading right now, lest you should heap to yourself an even greater degree of accountability.

 

How to Find God

You must understand one key element of God’s nature: His righteousness. God can have no part with evil, however slight.

You must honestly evaluate your own human nature, and understand that it has a dark and sinful component.

You must therefore logically conclude that there is a basic incompatibility between the human and divine nature. We humans can never attain unto God’s righteousness on our own, and He can never overlook our sin. If he did, He would no longer be 100% righteous, and He would then not be God.

The Biblical Solution

Throughout the Old Testament, we find the recurring theme of blood sacrifice. Few people can understand this concept on their own. When Abraham conducted an animal sacrifice and shed animal blood, the Bible says it was "counted unto him for righteousness." What God meant here is of utmost significance and very powerful: God understood that Abraham was sacrificing an animal as a picture of what he knew would take place one day; that would be the sacrifice of God’s own Son as the great sacrifice for mankind’s sin, the prevailing theme of both the Old and New Testaments.

With that sacrifice that took place on a cross 2,000 years ago, Jesus Christ was able to make the only payment God, in His perfect righteousness, could find acceptable for human sin. God could not overlook our sin and still be God, and we had no means of paying for our sin ourselves and meeting God’s standard of perfect righteousness.

Just as when a check is written, the bearer must express faith in the validity of that check by taking it to the bank; so must we express our personal faith in God’s sacrifice by personally "endorsing" it and openly "depositing" it.

My personal faith in Jesus Christ brought me to that place of decision in 1983. I realized that there was an overwhelming amount of empirical evidence that the Bible was true—the same book that made the link between Old Testament sacrifice and the vicarious death of Christ on the cross. It would have been easy for me to put up an artificial barrier to avoid that commitment, but I knew that intellectual honesty required me to admit that the facts that I have described above made a very compelling argument for the Christian faith. I knew that my life would have to change, but rather than make this an effort of will that seemed to always be doomed to failure, I came to God in the only way that had ever really made any sense to me: I admitted my sinful nature and told Him that I was accepting the substitutionary death of His Son Jesus Christ as the only payment for my sins that His perfect righteousness could accept. It worked! My life has never been the same. My sins were lifted at that instant, and I could not deny it.

That is how you too can come to God at this very moment. What do you have to lose?

A Word of Caution

If you chose not to follow this course, I would ask you only one thing: be honest with God and tell Him why: because you choose to hang on to your sin. My testimony to you would then be quite simple: that is the worst and most foolish decision you have ever made in your entire life on earth! My prayer for you is that God would touch your heart before He decides to make you eternally accountable for that choice, and exact of you the ultimate price for literally having bet your very soul that the Bible is not true.