Close Enough?

Recently, I heard a pastor say something that I haven't been able to stop thinking about: "God does not have grandchildren."

The statement caught me off guard because it sounds strange at first. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how profoundly true it is. God is a Father, and fathers have children. No one inherits a relationship with Jesus through their family tree. No one enters the Kingdom because their parents loved God, their grandparents prayed faithfully, or they grew up sitting in a church pew every Sunday. A relationship with Christ is something each person must choose for themselves.

I think one of the easiest traps to fall into is confusing familiarity with intimacy. We can become so familiar with Christian culture that we assume we know God simply because we've always been around things related to Him. We know the stories. We know the verses. We know the songs. We know how to answer the questions. Yet knowing about someone and knowing someone are not the same thing. I can know facts about a person without ever having a relationship with them, and the same can be true with Jesus.

When Jesus called His disciples, He never said, "Follow your parents." He never said, "Borrow someone else's faith." His invitation was always personal: "Follow Me." Christianity has never been about standing close to someone who knows God. It has always been about knowing God yourself. That is why one of Paul's greatest desires was not success, influence, or accomplishment, but simply "that I may know Him." Out of everything Paul could have pursued, he considered knowing Christ to be of surpassing worth.

Sometimes I wonder if we spend so much time listening to other people talk about God that we forget to spend time with God ourselves. We listen to sermons, read books, follow Christian influencers, and consume endless content about faith. None of those things are bad. In fact, they can be incredible gifts. But eventually every one of us has to answer a question that nobody else can answer on our behalf: Do I actually know Him?

The beautiful thing about the Gospel is that God's invitation is personal. He is not looking for grandchildren who know about Him because of someone else's relationship. He is calling sons and daughters who know Him for themselves. And when I think about eternity, that is what matters most. Not how many sermons I listened to. Not how many Christian books I read. Not how closely I associated myself with faith. What matters is whether I knew the One who gave me life in the first place.

Because God does not have grandchildren. He only has children. And the invitation to become one has always been open.