GOD wants to know YOU

  

Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

John 14:9

Vicar.  A word you know; a word that I know.  But, do we actually know what it means?  Many may answer that vicar means priest or minister - as in the leader of a church.  The sobering truth is that it actually means something quite different...

Priest is fairly close, but in the sense of "one who stands between".  Vicar is a shortened version of the word vicarious, which means "serving instead of someone or something else".  It can be argued that vicar is a good word since we often experience GOD through our church leaders, we experience worship and teaching through their gifting.


The snag occurs when we ONLY experience GOD through these leaders, and don't experience Him for ourselves.  In the Old Testament there were heaps of priests; but then Jesus came and was called the High Priest (read Hebrews 4,5 &6).  Until that point, GOD's people were only able to experience and communicate with Him through the priest.  With our language and traditions we have fallen into the Old Testament mindset that we can only experience GOD vicariously, through our vicar.  In our heads we may know different, but in our actions we follow the patterns of the early Hebrews - we go to the vicar before we go to GOD.


Jesus' finished work on the cross abolished the need for a vicar, Sin was no longer an impenetrable barrier between us and GOD.  Jesus said to His disciples, if you have seen me (your High Priest), then you have seen GOD.  In other words, the one who now stands between GOD and us is Jesus!  WOW!


So, if your leaders disappoint you or get it wrong, that's okay because your salvation, your joy, your hope, your song is not in them!  It's in JESUS!


May I encourage you today that Jesus died so that you could take possession of your relationship with Him.  You no longer need to operate through someone else in order to encounter GOD.  By His Grace, you can know GOD.