Still Haven’t Found What They Are Looking For

In Acts 17, Paul is preaching to a learned and religious people. People that knew enough to know they didn’t know it all and have tried in their ignorance to still seek out God, but still tried to shape a God they didn’t know into a known form.

In this lesson, He makes an interesting comment in verses 27, “that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;”. God in his control has set up the order and events of time to try to direct men to him, yet mankind still can locate what is right in front of them. The NASB and NKJ use the word ‘grope’, the ESV and KJV use the term ‘feel’.

Have you ever had to try to find your glasses in the dark on the nightstand? You know it is there but you can find it? That is the picture he is painting, a people that know he is there but can’t seem to figure out where.

People are still trying to feel their way to God. Learned and religious people think they can figure out what God is and how he thinks. But they still are groping, even though they may not be far off.

That is because we can only learn about God in what he has shown us of himself. God isn’t made by man’s creativity or imagination. God IS regardless of the picture we create of him. To truly know God isn’t to conjure him up but to look to how he has shown himself to us thru His Son and in His word.

This matters because, in the end, we will all stand before, not our created image of him but the reality of Him. That judgment will come by Jesus’ standard not one we made.

That is why need to trust more in what is shown than what we feel. I may feel this or that is right by God but I can just be groping for personal justification rather than seeing what he truly stands for.

Don’t make God in your image rather be conformed to His.

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