Our greatest need in life is not more stuff, more time or more money.
Our greatest need is to know God.
So who is God?
To us, most clearly, he is Jesus.
We can know God by knowing Jesus. “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Hebrews 1:3).
Jesus lived on earth 33 years. Nazareth, Israel was his hometown.
The New Testament gospels recount his virgin birth and life story. “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him” (Acts 10:38).
Jesus was crucified to death as punishment for the sins of those who accept him by faith. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). And “…as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name” (John 1:12).
Jesus rose from the dead. He was “delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Romans 4:25).
Jesus later ascended to heaven and someday will return to earth.
Angels told the disciples, “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11).
Jesus will return at any time for those who have trusted him. “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).
He will later return again to earth in judgment “so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippines 2:10-11). All will bow. And all will confess. But those who have rejected Jesus during their lifetime will be thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14).
We need to know God.
Personally.
Right now.
We can know him through Jesus Christ.
Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me…Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:6, 9).