Many people are spiritual and searching for spiritual truth, but they don’t know the true and living God of the Bible. That’s how it was in the Apostle Paul’s day too. In his travels the Lord led him to the cultural hub of Athens where he found those in power to be searching for spiritual answers to the world’s challenges. Acts 17:21 tells us that, “All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.” They were looking for spiritual truth but they weren’t looking in the right place.

Paul acknowledged their spirituality and addressed their ignorance. It says, “Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.”  Acts 17:22-23

We’re called to do the same thing today, “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). We are to testify, as Paul did, to our family and friends, and to everyone God gives us the opportunity to influence, that the God they don’t yet know—the one true God—is the God you can know. He’s the creator and sustainer of the universe, “the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God” (1 Timothy 1:17) and incredibly he wants us to know him personally.

Unfortunately, most people make their way through life today never knowing personally the great and awesome creator of the universe. They don’t know that he wants be known by them and that He desires fellowship with them. They’ve never heard or never fully understood the good news that “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” They don’t yet know the joy of sins forgiven or the guarantee of eternal life with Him.

It is our job to tell them, so that they might go from worshipping an unknown God, or whatever they’re putting their trust in, to knowing Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior.

Do you have friends or family who are spiritual, but do not know Jesus? Let’s ask God to prepare us and give us the opportunity to present the gospel to them.