Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:22–28, NIV 1984).
My Musings – I am afraid that the image that many people have of God today is an “unknown god,” bearing little resemblance to how He is portrayed in the Scriptures. Stripped of His role as Creator. Viewed on one extreme as unreasonably oppressive and on the other as unconditionally permissive. He is “slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished.” (Numbers 14:18, NIV 1984). Totally just in His dealing with sinners who reject Christ, and totally righteous in His forgiveness of sinners who accept Christ.
My Advice – Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6, NIV 1984). And “whoever comes to me I will never drive away.” (John 6:37, NIV 1984). This is the way to the known God. But beware. “He has set a day when he will judge the world with justice.” (Ac 17:31, NIV 1984). Before that day, we need to “seek him …reach out for him…find him. He is not far from [any] of us.”
The Brew Is A Musing 