Thankful for knowing the King (and, even more, that He knows me).

[I didn't get the chance to blog yesterday, but I didn't want to let the opportunity to express thankfulness completely pass me by.]

As my wife and I don't have TV for anything except movies (that is, we don't have cable and we keep our antenna unplugged most of the time), I find myself listening to a lot of broadcasts, podcasts, and webcasts over the Internet. One of my very favorite things to listen to is The Way of the Master Radio. Now, listening to a talk radio show like this on a consistent basis gives a person a certain sense that they know the host personally. And I know that this phenomenon can occur with other encounters through mass media as well. That is, sports fans who see their favorite player every day on ESPN can get to feel that they know him, or people who read US or People magazine can begin to talk as if they know some of the Hollywood stars that they see on TV. But it is sad to realize that knowledge of such personalities is merely an illusion. That is, I may feel that I know Todd Friel (the host of The Way of the Master Radio) I may even get the chance to briefly shake his hand or something at the Way of the Master Transformed conference I'm going to on December 2, but I don't really know him, and he certainly doesn't know me. In other words, the feeling of friendship sometimes given through mass media is nothing more than an illusion.

As I was thinking about this the other day, I was suddenly made aware of a great privilege we have as Christians. Every day Christians all over the world read their Bibles and (if we are reading with the right attitude) by this experience we come to feel as if we know God. But in this case, by faith, we know that this feeling is not an illusion, but a reality. And the more impressive reality is that as much as we feel we know God, He knows us infinitely better. Realization that God knows us completely should bring about a certain feeling of fear as we realize His holy hatred for sin and the fact that we so often go against His will for us, but when we come to know that Christ has paid for our sins through His death on the Cross and that He has risen from the dead to be our advocate before God, then God's loving knowledge of us becomes a great comfort.

So, in conclusion, I encourage anyone reading this to lay aside false feelings of knowing any celebrity or media personality and instead make sure that through faith in Christ You know the ultimate Personalty- the King of Kings- God Himself. Then, through knowing God, you may be truly thankful.