The first thing to note is that this acquaintance depends on us. So
then there must have been a previous objective manifestation on His
part. Of course there must be a God to know, and there must be a way
of knowing Him. For us Jesus Christ is the Revealer. What men know of
God apart from Him is dim, shadowy, indistinct; it lacks certainty,
and so is not knowledge. I venture to say that there is nothing
between cultivated men and the loss of certain knowledge of God and
conviction of His Being, but the historical revelation of Jesus
Christ. The Christ reveals the inmost character of God, and that not
in words but in deeds. Without Him no man knows God; 'No man knoweth
the Father save the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him.'
So then the objective revelation having been made, we must on our part
embrace that revelation as ours. The act of so accepting begins with
the familiar act of faith, which includes both an exercise of the
understanding, as it embraces the facts of Christ's revelation of the
Father, and of the will as it casts itself upon and submits to Him.
But that exercise of faith is but the point which has to be drawn out
into a golden line, woven into the whole length of a life. And it is
in the continuity of that line that the average Christian so sadly
fails, and because of that failure his acquaintance with God is so
distant. How little time or thought we give to the character of God as
revealed in Jesus Christ! We must be on intimate terms with Him. To
know God, as to know a man, we must 'live with' Him, must summer and
winter with Him, must bring Him into the pettinesses of daily life,
must let our love set to Him, must be in sympathy with Him, our wills
being tuned to make harmony with His, our whole nature being in accord
with His. That is work more than enough for a lifetime, enough to task
it, enough to bless it.