Season 1, Episode 1
In this first episode I want to share with you the wonder … the amazing, all-consuming reality of living in a personal love relationship with God.
This is way beyond religion. It is way beyond any human concepts. And it is God’s gift to you if you will open your heart to Him. So much does God want that for you that His eyes are constantly scanning this world – looking for those who are looking for Him.
The closer you already are to God, the more He will respond to you and draw you closer still. But the further you are from God – while at the same time wishing you could be close to Him – the greater is His desire to draw you to Himself!
At this point, I’d like to make this categorical statement: all true relationship with God is experiential. Which means the only way you can ever know Him is by personally experiencing Him.
Never forget that God is a person … the Ultimate Person! Believe me when I say that there is no relationship in the entire Universe more truly personal than the one you can have with God – and which He has given everything to have with you.
In this first episode, as well as in others to follow, I will be sharing aspects of my own relationship with God: how it began, what it’s been like over the years (and decades!) and what it is like now.
So, to start with, I’ll tell you how it all began.
Born in Australia to Greek immigrant parents, my religious upbringing was in the Greek Orthodox Church. My mother was quite religious, and I grew up believing God existed. But beyond that I wanted to be close to Him, even from an early age when I did not really understand what that meant. That same desire was behind my decision, when I was 13, to become an altar boy in the Greek Orthodox church. Even though that of itself did nothing to draw me closer to God, I do believe He saw it for what it was. True to His nature, God later honoured that desire beyond anything I could have expected.
In 1959, when I was 17, the American evangelist Billy Graham held a four-week Evangelistic Crusade in my home city of Melbourne, Australia. With people flocking in their tens of thousands to hear him, the Crusade soon became big news. I had never been to anything like that – so out of sheer curiosity (or so I thought) I went along one night, by myself, to see what it was all about.
I have never been able to recall what Billy Graham said that night … yet I have never forgotten the impact of his words. As soon as he finished preaching and began inviting people to come forward to ‘receive Jesus as their personal Saviour’ I was in conflict. I had not expected anything like that, but as the choir sang verse after verse of the hymn ‘Just As I Am,’ I wrestled with my inner feelings. Something inside of me wanted so much to respond, but I was scared … to the extent of even being afraid that, if I did go forward, I might be picked up on a TV news camera and be seen by someone I knew!
Then, as the choir was about to sing the last verse and the evangelist urged: “If you’re going to come, come now,” I knew I just had to respond – not so much to Billy Graham but to the urgings of my own heart. So, I got out of my seat and joined those gathering at the front.
After Billy Graham had led us in a prayer of repentance and commitment, I was approached by a counsellor who tried his best to help me understand what I had just done. By then my mind was in a bit of a whirl and I hardly took in anything he said. Yet, soon after, as I walked home along darkened streets, I felt like I was walking on air. My childhood search for God was over, and a whole new life was now ahead of me!
A few weeks later, I began attending a local Anglican Church which had contacted me to follow up my response at the Crusade. Thus began my induction into the ‘Christian subculture’ – where, as ‘the new kid on the block,’ I soon realised that my recent ‘born-again’ experience really was just a beginning. It seemed like I was constantly being introduced to a different way of living, different values, different activities, a new jargon, and so much more. My whole world was rapidly changing!
Just about everyone I talked to in this new world had been there before me, so whenever anyone said, ‘you should do this’ or ‘you shouldn’t do that,’ …I unquestioningly believed them. I’d had a genuine experience with God, I knew my life had totally changed on the inside … and I wanted to live it to the full.
Jesus spoke about this new life to an eminent religious teacher called Nicodemus, who came to Him one night seeking answers. “Rabbi,” he said, “we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no-one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.” And what did Jesus say to this great ‘teacher of Israel’? “I tell you the truth, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Because you are reading this there’s a good chance you’re familiar with the term ‘born-again Christian’ – and if you are already born-again, you also know how real it is. But what does it mean to know God? There’s no doubt in my mind that I knew Him from the moment I responded at the Billy Graham Crusade … but the difference between what happened then and what has continued to take place between God and me over all the years since is immense!
I said earlier that all personal relationship with God is experiential. True though that is, it has far more to do with your ongoing experience than your initial experience of coming to know Him.
My wife, Judy, and I have been married now for 59 years. I remember so well the day I first met her, when she was 16 and I was 18. I also remember what it was like when I first fell in love with her. And I sure do know what it’s been like to share our lives together over all the years from then till now. But if my ongoing relationship with Judy was anything less than experiential, I don’t know what it would be like now! We would be strangers to one another, who might just as well not be living under the same roof. And, whatever the nature of our relationship, it would be a marriage in name only.
In the same way, your relationship with God must be ongoingly experiential – an intimate love relationship that grows constantly richer, deeper and more beautiful. That was God’s intention from the beginning when He made Adam – creating him with His own hands and moulding him into His own image.
When Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden they lost their immortality … and we lost ours. But out of His great love, God sent Jesus to lay down His life for us, so that we can regain what Adam lost and live forever with God in the deepest, richest and most intimate relationship in the whole Universe.
This is not about ‘Bible knowledge’. It is not about statements of doctrine or theology. Nor is it about how much you say or do ‘in the name of Jesus’. It is entirely about what exists – personally, intimately, continually – between you and the Living God who created you and who loves you with an everlasting love.
When Jesus was asked which of God’s commandments was the most important, His reply was unambiguous. “The most important one is … Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30).
There is no greater attainment than to love God with your entire being!
I have experienced so much since that night in 1959 when I first met Jesus. Yet nothing, however wonderful, can compare with the transforming wonder of loving Him with my whole being … which eclipses anything and everything else!
I cannot over-emphasise how imperative it is for you to know and love God like that.
Which brings me to the very reason why He has led me into making these podcasts.
My original use of the title ‘Led Into Love,’ was for a book I wrote about my journey to Moscow in 1970, which lasted seven months and was a thrilling faith adventure with God. t also became a pivotal time in my life – because, as I travelled, God changed me from a servant to a lover.
That, too, was many years ago. Yet, as I continue to live in that love relationship with God, He keeps taking me further and deeper into this wonderful experience of loving Him with all that I am.
You too can be a true lover of God. You were created for nothing less and for nothing else, than to freely and completely abandon yourself to Him – loving Him with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul and with all your strength.