Me And God, We Be Mates

     Throughout the history of mankind, people have worshipped God. 
Shortly after Seth had his son Enosh, in Genesis 4:26, it says that
"Then men began to call on the name of the Lord".  Men knew to seek
God and call on Him but man soon became corrupted.  Only a few
thousand years later, he had changed what was right until it says of
them in Genesis 6:5 that "... the Lord saw that the wickedness of man
was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his
heart was only evil continually.  And the Lord was sorry that He had
made man ..."

     In only two thousand years, man had messed up so badly that God
was ready to destroy him.  Fortunately Noah was a good man and found
grace in God's eyes.  It was then that God made a deal (or covenant)
with Noah to never again to destroy the earth by water.

     Up to this point, man's knowledge of God was very limited.  God,
however, started to reveal himself little by little to man so that we
could not only worship Him but do it in a personal way.  As we move
through the Scriptures, we see a loving God revealing Himself until he
gave us the ultimate expression of Himself by having His Son Jesus
born into human flesh.  Even after Jesus suffered death on the cross
and ascended into heaven, He sent the Holy Spirit to keep that
expression alive in our hearts.

     Jesus explained to Phillip when he asked to see God in John 14:9
that "He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say,
'Show us the Father'?"  Jesus, as the 'only begotten Son' of the
Father, has inherited the same nature and expression of God the
Father.  All that God has and is, He gave to His Son.  Nothing was
held back.  Therefore, when we look to Jesus, we see God.  And it is
only through Jesus that we can know God.

     But how well can we know God?  The Jews in Jesus' day were very
upset with Him when He referred to God as His "Father".  Not only did
He do that, but Jesus even taught His followers to pray to "Our
Father, who art in heaven."  They failed to see that when we believe,
we become not only children of creation, but children with a personal
relationship with God.  He cares for us as our Father and at the same
time, we respond to Him as our Father.  A deep and personal
relationship.

     This relationship may mean different things to different people,
but we once we accept God's Son as our Lord and God as our Father, we
can say like Paul Hogan did in his role in "Crocodile Dundee."  "Yep,
it's straight to heaven for Mick Dundee, ... me and God, we be mates."

Frank Cooke