Poster Archive : AUGUST 2007
Message: God wants you to come closer.
Bible Verse: Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.
Reflect: God wants you to come closer.
It was a moment every father fears. One fine Sunday after church recently, Matt was walking back to the car with his twoyear old girl. He stopped to check he had everything - phone, Bible, jackets - when, looking up, he noticed that little Anastasia had disappeared.
He backtracked to church - no sign there. He searched the hall - no. The play-gym, nothing.
Almost everyone had left for home now. Panic rose in his chest as he headed for the back street. And there she was. He slowed his step and took a deep breath. She was pottering about by some parked cars. Just as he edged towards her to bundle her up in a hug, she turned around.
"Daddy," she said with a broad smile, "I've found you!"
Yes, Anastasia had found her Daddy. Though, really, he had found her.
And while we may think that we're the ones that search to find God, the reality is God is searching to find us. We may think we do the work, but really it's as ineffective as little Anastasia's search for her Dad. In the Bible, the apostle Paul wrote to the Christians in the city of Ephesus, "It is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God."
We need this grace, this gift, because we don't know how to search for God. As he circled the earth in his space probe, Yuri Gagarin said, "I don't see any God up here." But he was looking in the wrong place. You'll never find God in space. You'll find him in the man Jesus Christ.
Jesus' disciple, John, said: "No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known." It's true that God wants us to come closer to him. But the place to meet him is where he has reached out to us, in his son Jesus. You can meet Jesus as he speaks in the pages of the Bible.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank you that you have not kept yourself hidden, but have made yourself plain to the world in Jesus. Let me see him more clearly. AMEN