Berni Dymet is an inspiration to me. He came to know Jesus at the age of 36 – a bit late in life as he always say. He was a former military and an IT-consultant. He loves his wife, Jacqui, a lot; taking her on a date especially Saturday mornings down at their favorite café. He loves to walk around the harbour foreshore. He loves blogging also, and he is the CEO and bible teacher of the Australian-based, global media ministry Christianityworks.

Quick confession; I have no idea who Berni is (though I wish I could meet him). I know about him because I listen to him every morning on his radio show. A quick google and poof! I can tell you this lot about him.

Social psychologists would say that I don’t know Berni, I know about Berni. And they will use the terms impersonal knowledge and personal knowledge.

Impersonal knowledge(also referred to as shared knowledge) is that I could see Berni, recognize him, say hello to him, ask him about his radio program, his wife, even his latest blog. But still the psychologists would say, “You don’t know him, you just know about him.”

On the other hand, personal knowledge is to know who someone is, to know information that is particularly intimate or private.

I could talk about Berni and what he does but to actually know him, I need to sit with him and him to begin to unpack to me unseen things. Things that google cannot tell me, aspects of his life that is hidden in the general information. Then I could begin to say, “Yeah, I know Berni.”

That is exactly how we know God.

Most of us only have impersonal relationship with God. Our only knowledge on what He did only came from the sermons we attend to, the tv shows we watch every Holy Week, and sometimes from Christian friends. Not that they are bad sources of information about God, they are actually very good! I would even recommend you to indulge in them. But for you to know God, is to have an intimate, personal relationship with Him.

I’ve seen so many believers who are content on what they know about God – I was too. I grew up in a Christian family. I pray, I sing praises, I go to church, I even post Bible verses, but that’s it. I don’t have any relationship with Him whatsoever, I don’t even want to know Him deeply! I was afraid that He’d take things from me, things I don’t want to give up. I confess that I know Him with my lips, but not with my heart. God became someone that exists around me, not with me. Until one day…

I was sitting at our dinner table, late summer of 2013, surfing Youtube for tutorials about typography. Just browsing, getting ideas, nothing special, but then I came across a certain clip, about 2 minutes short, a sermon by Matt Chandler, discussing about Jesus and what he did on the cross(which I heard like a thousand times). But this time…it’s different.

Within those 2 short minutes, everything I knew about God, in my 22 years of existence, made sense. First is that I am a sinner not capable of saving myself. That God does not despise me even though He knows my sins (this truth was really difficult for me to accept, you mean He’s not angry on what I did? Well, yeah.). That despite my blasphemous dirty heart, despite my unwillingness to come to Him…He came to me. Not to condemn me, but to forgive me. And He gave me something that I longed for, deep inside my heart – a restart. A brand new life, anchored in a relationship with Christ.

I wish I could tell you how it felt like, but it’s no use(believe me I tried). That feeling is for you to find out. All I know is that I won’t feel what I feel(yes I still feel it today), if I did not let God enter into my heart, if I did not accept His call to a relationship with Him through Jesus Christ.

God wants you to know Him – personally. He is relentlessly knocking at your heart, if only you would answer. He is using the whole universe just to draw you close to Him, everything in this world at His disposal. As for me He, used a 2 minute clip. Maybe for you He will use a 2 minute blog.

Rrrring rrrring!!

Phone’s ringing….It’s for you.