We all try to put our best foot forward in life. Fair enough. But eventually, we can find ourselves trying to impress people rather than being ourselves. So – should we try to impress God – or is it come as you are?

One way or another, we all try and put our best foot forward. When we go for a job interview, we make sure that we're dressed well and our hair is combed and we go in with a smile and we say the right things. When friends come over to visit, we tidy up the house. And in one sense, there's nothing wrong with that. But we live in a world, well, it rewards us for how we look or what we do or the size of our pay packet. You know what I mean. And so we can end up on this treadmill.

Whatever that looks like in our different circles or cultures, way deep down inside, we end up believing that life is about – impressing people. That's why so many of the experiences available out there in the spiritual marketplace are about getting off that treadmill – relaxation, massage, meditation, aromatherapy, feng shui to design a tranquil home. But what about God? Is having a relationship with Him about keeping up appearances or getting off that treadmill?

This week on "A Different Perspective", we're looking at the whole subject of experiencing God. If you were with us the other day, we talked about the fact that there are two ways of knowing something. We can know it as fact, as head knowledge. And we can know it in experience. We can know that we should eat more fruit because it's healthy for us, it's good for us and it will reduce heart disease and diabetes. We know that.

But it's not until we experience the fruit that we go, "Wow! That's really good!" Three thousand years ago, David said:

Taste and see that the Lord is good. (Psalm 32:8)

In other words, experience Him for yourself in a relationship.

Yesterday, we spoke about desire. The need for us to have a God-given desire to want to have a relationship with Him. Any relationship needs to have an element of desire, a spark, a flame. Without desire a relationship goes nowhere.

As the deer pants after streams of living water so my soul pants after you our God. (Psalm 42:1)

Some psalmist wrote that three thousand years ago.

Today, I'd like to talk about one of the biggest obstacles to experiencing and enjoying a relationship with God. It's the feeling that deep down inside (somewhere), "Well, I'm just not good enough. I have to get my act together before I can go and talk to God." It's that idea that somehow sitting down with God to pray is … well, it's like a bit of a job interview. You put your face on. You wear the right clothes. You say the right things. You smile. It's about appearances. There's a formula, you know, we need to impress God

Well, is that right? Do we need to put on good clothes to talk to God? Do we need to impress God? Well, let's see what Jesus said. If you're interested, you can find this quote in the very first book of the New Testament, Matthew's gospel, chapter 11:25-26. This is what He said. He said:

"Father, Dad" He loved calling Him Dad. "I praise you because you have concealed your ways from the know-it-all(s); from the people who think of themselves as being sophisticated and intelligent. But you spelled them out clearly to ordinary people."

Question: What sort of people do you like to socialise with? I mean, do you like to hang around with hoity-toity people, the know-it-all(s), the people who always have a face on and they're part of the set? Or would you rather hang around with plain, ordinary people, no face, no pretence, what you see is what you get, no effort to impress.

Well, it's pretty obvious, isn't it? I mean it's much nicer to be around people, who are just themselves, who just relax, who don't have a need to always compete. And put their best foot forward.

Well, so why wouldn't God feel exactly the same? It turns out that He does according to Jesus. And so we go to God, when we stand before God and say, "Lord, here I am".

There are some really good things in our lives, some things that we do well, some things that we're enjoying. And there are some pretty lousy things sometimes in our lives. Things that in our heart of hearts we know that we're doing the wrong things that we know we could do better – failures, hurts.

And we have a choice. We can either stand in front of God and try to impress him and put a face on. And what Jesus said was, "Father I thank you that you have hidden and concealed all your ways from the know-it-all(s)" – the people who think of themselves as sophisticated. So, if we go to God like that, here's a promise from Jesus, God will hide Himself from someone who comes to Him like that. Or we can go to God just as we are.

But here's the crunch and you see it in the Apostle Paul as he was writing and as he grew in his maturity in his relationship with God. The closer we get to God, the more the light of His love and His presence shines into our hearts. The more painfully aware that we become of the blank inky spots on our hearts, the things that are wrong, the things that God calls sin. The closer we get the harder, the more heavily they weigh on us.

That's what Paul said, "Wretched man that I am! I know that there is nothing good that dwells in me, that's in my flesh. Who will save me from this? Who will set me free from this?" And then he comes up with the answer. "Thanks be to God, Jesus Christ who died on the cross for me."

If we would come before God and have a relationship with Him in a way that's real, in a way that's, aahh, so warm, so close, we're going to have to deal with our sin.

I'm sorry if you find that word offensive. I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm being judgmental but it's not my word, it's God's word. Sin is sin. The closer we get to God, the blacker it seems. And ultimately there's only one way of dealing with that sin and it's not putting a face on.

How can we ever think that we can hide anything from God if God is, after all, God? The closer we get, the more acutely we become aware of our need for forgiveness and our need for someone or something to deal with that sin. And we know that … that's why Jesus Christ died on the cross so that we could go before God and say, "Father, forgive me not because of what I've done, but because of what my Jesus did for me."

We can either do that or we can never come close at all. We can ignore our sin and live out its consequences and say, "Well, yeah. I believe in God from a distance. I believe I'm a pretty good person and I know that, um, yeah I'll hang out here at a distance and I won't deal with my sin." But you see people who do that are the ones who never enjoy their relationship with Jesus. They never know that wonderful sense of His peace and joy just flooding out of them.

Yesterday, I was flying on a plane; I was up really, really early in the morning. So my usual prayer time that I usually have with God, I just couldn't have. And I was sitting on the plane flying to where I was flying and I have to say that I was pretty tired because it was so early in the morning. And without me saying anything, without me doing anything, just kind of closing my eyes and looking at God with the eyes of my soul – this peace, this joy, this Holy Spirit just filled my whole body. And that can only happen because I believe that Jesus has paid for my sin.

That's why I can stand before God. And that's the only way that you can stand before God too. There's the choice. Hang out there at a distance and never experience it.

Come to God and try and impress Him and the promise from Jesus is, you try and do that and God will hide himself from you. Or come to God, just as we are, and say, "Lord, I know there are some rotten things in my life but I'm going to experience you because Jesus died to buy that right for me."