How to Come to God

True and false religion are diametrically opposed to one another precisely on the point of how to come to God. False religion does one of two things. It either imagines God as far off and impersonal, and thus essentially indifferent to us; or it rolls up its sleeves and plunges its hands into the mud of carnal imagination and crafts a god that is suitable to its own preferences. 

But true religion doesn’t try to alter God. God stands forth as the perfection of all goodness, truth, and beauty. The Most High God sits enthroned in the majestic joy of His triune life. True religion doesn’t tinker with God, for He has revealed Himself to us with perfect clarity in both creation and in the Scriptures. Instead, true religion addresses the rot in the middle of man. 

False religion makes a god that can fit in our pocket. True religion turns a mirror to us so that we can see the great shame and ugliness of our sin, in order to rightly ask, “What must I do to be saved?” Our sin cut us off from this perfect God. Our best efforts are ineffective to please Him. Our best is, in the words of the prophet, menstrual rags. Whatever we could have boasted in, as the Apostle said, is like a fresh pile of manure.

Nevertheless, here before you is God’s answer to this great problem of how sinful man can approach God. It isn’t by pulling God down from heaven, but by accepting that He Himself came down from heaven willingly, as a servant, in order to die in your stead. This meal reminds you that true faith doesn’t try to make God palatable to man. Instead God, through Jesus Christ, has made you acceptable to God.

So, come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…