Perhaps we have asked our students the question "What is God like?" I recently found myself asking "What IS my God like?" I will confess I have all sorts of connotative meanings to words like holy and just and righteous and loving. But is that what God is really like? We Christians sometimes like things to be so "definite." But I will confess --the more I know Him, the less I seem to understand what He truly is like. The closer I try to get to God, the more overwhelmed I am that He is not at all what I think (or is it want?) Him to be. My God is beyond my knowledge and beyond my understanding. He is beyond my very imagination. I choose to believe He IS God, and I choose to believe He IS holy. Yet I just don't always know clearly what His definition of holiness is. We recently studied in my Sunday school class about the righteousness of God. If righteousness is something aligned to a concept of right and true, then what does GOD SAY is right and true? (Go ahead, try to put that all in a few short sentences!) I believe my God is just. But apparently I'm not really sure what justice is, for many things around me don't seem to be just by my definition. Our pastor recently encouraged us that more than answering our prayers, our God wants us to get to KNOW Him. Do we know God? Oh, sure, I've been a Christian for a long time. God even answers my prayers, and directs my heart and mind. Sometimes, He speaks in a still small voice to my very soul! Yet, if I REALLY know GOD... then how am I not constantly grieved at the evil I see around me? If I really know how God loves those around me who are on their way to hell, I think I might pray differently. I think I would intercede with a new passion for lost souls. Of course, here I go again with my connotative meanings of God's character and how we would act if we had it! The ONLY WAY to know God is to go to Him --to kneel at the foot of the cross . . . to allow His blood to cleanse us . . . to enter boldly into the Holy of Holies. When I think of Christ and the cross, a sense of wonder floods my soul. There is something about the grace and the blood of Christ that covers me that just overwhelms me as I approach Almighty God. My soul cries "I want to know God!" and yet my heart cries "Oh how can You love this wretch that I am?" And then, . . . sometimes, I get a tiny glimpse of what my God is like. Yes! I know what my God is like --but I cannot explain Him to you! I can lead you to the cross. I can show you God's Word. I can love you... but I can't really really make YOU understand what my God is like. The more I study the God of the Old Testament, the more amazed I am at the God of the New Testament. God in the Old Testament seems so mighty and powerful and vicious and demanding, and yet that God comes to DIE FOR ME in the New Testament. We can teach our students about God, but to know what God is really like, they must know Him for themselves. The work of the Holy Spirit must tune their hearts to God's heart. I'll admit, my tuning button still has some static, and I'm still working on truly knowing "What is God Like?" ---------------