One of the interesting aspects of our post-modern, secular, cynical times is that despite all the materialism, the cynicism and the growth of belief in evolution there is a growing interest in spirituality. That spirituality may be a little weird, it may consist of a hotchpotch of other spiritualities mixed together, but there is no denying that in our modern sophisticated world God and religion is still big. A cursory look at some of the best seller lists in recent years has shown the popularity of titles like “The Purpose Driven Life” and The God Delusion. The twin towers attacks and the high profile of Islam has ensured that religion is still big news. Also, even in our culture, no matter how much our spiritual side is suppressed and privatised we find it keeps on rising up there into the public domain. A lot of people, even though they do not go to church, will admit that they believe in God and in an afterlife. In all my years of having pastoral conversations with people and dealing with death, I have only come across two full blown atheists.

My experience is that Romans 1:19-20 is true – “what may be known about God is plain. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities have been clearly seen but men suppress the truth by their wickedness”. The truth is not only “out there”, it is in us, for God has put it there, and no matter how much people deny it, their consciences tell them there is more than we can see, there is more to life, there is a someone or something greater than us out there.

So all around us there is this searching for truth, this hunger for the spiritual, a recognition within people, modern people, there is an ache, a longing, a searching for something beyond themselves. And beyond all the material things and the celebrity status some people have realised these things do not bring true happiness. There is more.

However the sad thing is that sometimes when people have turned to the church, and specifically the Protestant evangelical church, they have not been able to find a satisfaction for their longing and hunger. Instead they have encountered busyness, activism, surface religion, pious platitudes, hypocrisy and a lack of honesty. Not only is there hunger out in the world but there is hunger among our own ranks – there are many who profess they know God but when we scratch the surface we find people in the church who know as little of God or of spiritual reality as those outside the church. This is a tragedy and it is a growing tragedy which is leading to many leaving the church, some living their lives with a gloss of Christianity but which by and large makes no real difference to how they order their lives.

The situation is so bad that you could ask the average communicant member in our churches what God has been saying to them recently and they will look at you blankly for, much as they say they believe in God, there is no reality in their relationship with God, there is no connectedness. As Bruce Demarest says “We freely speak about God, but so often the reality of God’s transforming presence and power is absent. As conservative Christians we have a done a superior job defending doctrine and evangelising the unsaved. Have we done as good a job of building spiritually mature disciples?”  The answer I am afraid is no. In the west we are increasingly becoming a bankrupt church spiritually. We can have the buildings, the programmes, the numbers, the lively worship band but unless there are people who really know God then it is empty and will be shown to be empty.

So we have people who are looking for God, who have a God planted desire in their souls – are we going to be able to satisfy that desire because we have solid, spiritual reality in our hearts or are we deep down as confused, hungry and lost as those outside the church. Are we just as guilty as the world as CS Lewis says because we too are going after the lesser rather than the greater, satisfying our desires with trivial things and lesser things when God is before us calling us into a relationship with him?

We have talked in the first part of this series about knowing what God is like, about understanding God. As new covenant people we are best placed to know about this God. But now we want to focus on knowing him. We can know a lot about a person, we can read a biography and yet have never actually met the person we have read about. Can we boast with Jeremiah that we really know God, not just about him - “This is what the Lord says, Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on the earth, for in these I delight says the Lord”.  For too many of us God is a distant and fuzzy vagueness rather than a personal God who walks with us and talks with us each day.

Our current sickness I think has a number of causes – here are a few: a)shallowness - we have become distracted, we have settled for a head knowledge over a heart knowledge, we have thought that knowing about God is the same as knowing God, we have not pushed ourselves in terms of discipleship day by day with many thinking that turning up for Sunday worship for an hour a Sunday is the height of what is required. All these things have contributed to this malaise. b) Brennan Manning also talks about Protestant activism – he says “our kind of activism is a heresy of works”  - we who are so strong on grace and against being saved by works have turned our faith into a religion of works where attendance at the right things is seen to be enough while all along our soul is dying. And often those of us who are keenest as Christians move from receiving Christ to going and doing in the name of Christ but we forget the abiding in Christ that must lie at the centre of our lives. Jesus said “If a man remains or abides in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). We think we can do stuff in Christ’s name without even asking what he wants us to do. How presumptious is that? We are skating on thin ice. It is important that we are connected to God through Jesus, that we know what it is to abide in him.

Another problem today is c) the suspicion of the old and the free embracing of the young and new. Young and new can be good, but there is a too ready willingness to ditch the wisdom and the experience and the sheer godliness of the saints of old from many Christian traditions. There is a balance here of course, we need the best of old and new, and God can speak through new revival movements. But we need a spirit of discernment and the spirit of our age is a wholesale following of new things when God may not be in it at all. Our bookshops are filled with How to books and seven quick steps to spiritual growth books – it does not work that way. It is the work of a lifetime. We are looking for quick fixes. We are feeding ourselves on scraps when God is offering us a four course meal.

d) Another reason why our relationship with God suffers is the sheer busyness of modern life and the distractions and temptations that come into our faces through the media and especially through our computer screens. We live life at a fast pace. We work hard, we often have to travel long distances, we have high expectations from our children and are ferrying them here and there, and through it all is the relentless pinging of emails and the delights of bebo and facebook and twitter. In all of this where is God for the average Christian, what time and space is being carved out of all this busyness for a relationship with him. We find it even hard nurturing a relationship with our nearest and dearest family members as we compete with work schedules, socialising, TV and computer screens. Relationships take time and ours with God is no different.

What shall we do about this?

1.The first thing to do is to stop for Him and take an inventory of where we are, a soul inventory. Be honest with ourselves and ask where am I with God; do I know him, have I roots deep in God or am I skating on the surface, living on scraps of Bible reading, snatches of prayer, distracted and too often giving into temptations, running on empty?

If I put some words up on the screen, which of these would best summarise the state of your soul right now –

Distracted.  Hungry. Idolatrous. Dead. Content. Satisfied.

Maybe there are two or more feelings – maybe you can think of another word to sum up where you are. But we start by doing a soul inventory. Where am I with God really? When was the last time I felt close to him, when was the last time I felt a clear nudge in my spirit from him, when was the last time I lost myself in wonder, love and praise of Jesus for all that he has done for me? These are necessary questions.

2. Secondly, slow down for Him. Many of us are simply doing too much and we are too busy. Many of us appreciated the break at Christmas for it was a time to do nothing, esp, when the snow stopped us doing too much. Even then for some of us we could not wait to get to the shops. Slow down. Bruce Demarest says “A fulfilling and empowering connection with God cannot develop in busyness”.   Be still and know that I am God says the Psalmist (48:10)

As we spend time in his presence we experience his peace, his presence, and his power.

3. Press in to Him. Intentionally seek his presence. Determine that through bible reading, prayer and the spiritual disciplines to seek God’s face and to encounter him in a deeper way. Paul often prayed “I want to know Christ” (Phil.3:10) Note the warning of Matthew 7:21-23”Many will say to me on that day Lord, Lord did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles. Then I will tell them plainly – I never knew you.”  Maybe we assume that we know God and he knows us and he does not know us at all and we are living in a flimsy land of make believe.

If we say Jesus is our all in all, if we sing songs of worship which declare our loyalty and how much we love him is that mirrored in our lives Monday through Saturday? Are we truly excited by him? Do we really long to see his face or are we just jaded?

4. Abide in Him. John 15 reminds us to remain, to abide, to dwell in Christ.  Many times, 164 times in the New Testament, Paul says that we are in Christ and Christ is in us. He speaks of this close and intimate communion. We are joined to him by the Spirit. It should not only be a positional union – we are objectively declared to be in Christ, that is our position before God – but there ought to be an experiential union. It is our experience that he is with us and close to us.  In John 14:23 Jesus promises “we will come and live with you.” Isaiah 30:21 suggests that the new covenant people of God will hear God leading them and saying “this is the way, walk in it.”

5. Worship him. By worship we mean the real engagement with him in our mind, will, emotions, character, relationships and actions. We bring our whole selves to God and we seek to love him with all of our mind, soul, mind and strength (Dt.6:5). Again in the words of Peter we will be able to say with genuineness “Although I do not see him, I love him, and am filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy for I am receiving the goal of my faith, the salvation of my soul. “   (1 Peter 1:9)

Some of us need to rediscover what it is to waste time with God and to really worship. Today God is looking for worshippers; he is looking for people, as Piper says who recognise that God is the gospel – not the building, not the programme, not the music, not the band, not the preacher. No, God is the good news and it is about getting to know Him and worshipping him.   AW Tozer says “Christian churches have come to the dangerous time predicted long ago. It is a time when we can pat one another on the back and congratulate ourselves and say “we are rich, and s with goods, and have need of nothing”. Hardly anything is missing – except the most important thing. We are missing genuine and sacred offering of ourselves and our worship to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have been surging forward building great churches and boasting about high standards but what has happened to our worship?”   God is there and he is waiting for us. God is there and he longs to bless us if we would but put him at the top instead of the bottom of our agendas. God wants us to say “O God you are my God, earnestly I seek you, my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”(Ps.63:1)

What does closeness to God look like? We will have a deep sense of connectedness. We have a strong sense of God’s undeserved love and of being accepted by him. We know that our identity supremely is in Christ. Our worth comes increasingly from knowing and appreciating our standing in Christ. Rather than making us proud and arrogant, it makes us humble and thankful people. We enjoy a range of spiritual affections (or emotions) when we reflect upon God, his goodness and his creation and redemption. At times we are filled with joy, with peace, with gratitude and a strong spiritual desire so that we see with eyes of faith and things of the Spirit are as real to us the things of earth.  We have a settled conviction and a calmness of mind, We have a worshipful attitude to life, to work, to family and friends. We feel guided by God and prompted by him to do and say certain things.

In the Bible God describes the relationship with his people in four main ways and these are worthy of reflection – we are a chosen people; the relationship is akin to a parent and a child – he is our heavenly father; it is sometimes described as like the relationship between a lover and his or her beloved. The church is the bride of Christ. And finally he is the shepherd and we are the sheep – he knows us intimately, he searches for us when we go astray, he guards us, he guides us, he speaks to us and we recognise his voice. He lays down his life for us.

This is the God we worship and he calls us to be still and to know him. The Psalmist says he hungers for him – “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God, when can I go and meet with God.” Is this our experience. Do we want more? Next time we will continue with this as we look at how we can go deeper with God.

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