From Religion to Relationship in Ireland

My Journey to Knowing God

When I grew up in North Cork, there was plenty of religion. We know if you're Irish, there's loads of religion in Ireland. But what I didn't have when I grew up—which I've come to know now—is that you can have a relationship with God, which is so vastly different to religion.

Religion is a set of dos and don'ts. It's a set of rules, and it's not personal. It's not engaged with a living God. You're not in relationship with the living God.

Discovering Truth

As I grew up in Cork and started to enter into my adult years, I wanted to know truth—real truth, spiritual truth. Who is God? Can I know Him? Does He know me?

That's when I came across the Jesus that I read about in the New Testament in the Bible.

The Book of Ephesians

One of the books in the Bible's New Testament is called the Book of Ephesians. It was written by Paul when he was in jail in Rome. It was written to an Ephesian church—a small church in Ephesus, which is in Turkey.

The primary purpose of the letter, which is inspired ultimately by the Holy Spirit, was to remind the Christians there—to remind those who believed in Jesus Christ—that it was because God had loved them and desired to save them and be in a relationship with them that He had sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on a cross to pay for their sins: past, present, and future.

This was an amazing revelation to me.

God as Father

The letter went on to say that God would now become your Father if you believed in Jesus. God would adopt you into His family. You would have eternal life.

That was such good news! Because all I believed was that whether you're religious or not, you just die and that was the end. Maybe you even go to hell because I was never good enough to get into heaven. And the Bible says that's true—it says that all have sinned and fall short of God's glory.

My Search for Salvation

As I went about my life in Cork and in UCC and so on and so forth, in all the ways of my normal life just like anyone else, I began to wonder: How can I get saved? How can I have eternal life? Is this Jesus true? Is He who He says He is?

To my absolute joy and wonder and amazement, Jesus began to reveal Himself to me through the Scriptures. As I read the Bible—the New Testament especially—I began to see Him. As I said, in this Book of Ephesians, I saw the amazing promises of the resurrected Jesus:

The fact that Jesus has defeated death

That He didn't stay in the grave—He only stayed there three days
God raised Him from the dead
After meeting His disciples for 40 days, He went back into heaven
The Bible says that in heaven, He intercedes for us. In heaven, He's proclaiming and saying to the Father and the Holy Spirit: "My blood pays for Barry's sins—past, present, and future."

This is really good news.

Understanding God's Love and Grace
As you read through the Book of Ephesians, you see that it's God's intention in the book that you and I understand the depth of His love—the height and the width of this amazing love.

God speaks about His grace. Grace is something that's given to people who don't deserve it. We don't deserve God's grace. I don't deserve God's grace. It was given to me because of God's kindness and mercy and love.

Yet you see His justice in this—that sin has to be punished. My sin has to be paid for, and your sin has to be paid for. This is a spiritual truth, something grounded in the personality and in the heart of God. There has to be justice.

The Cross: Justice and Mercy
So how can God both forgive and also have justice? We see it at the cross.

What God wants us to understand is that there has to be payment for sin. Jesus paid for that sin with His blood. He died a brutal and horrible death, and in this way, He can then forgive you and me.

There is an exchange, as it were. Your sin, my sin—all the wrongdoings, every thought, every action that's wicked and evil—is put onto Christ, and God punishes Jesus. So the cross shows the punishment of sin in Christ, and yet it also shows the love and mercy of God in Christ.

Jesus now says: "I give My righteousness, My perfect moral character, to those who believe in Me—anyone who believes in Me."

The Gift of Righteousness

Jesus has given His perfect moral character to Barry Hannon, and I just have to believe in Him. I have to repent of my sin, my sinful life, my life of living independent of the Most High God, the Holy One of Israel, the One who is from everlasting to everlasting.

He's revealed Himself to me, and He says: "Anyone who seeks Him will find Him."

So if you seek God, you will find Him. Don't take my word for it. You call out to God. Pray to God. Ask God about Jesus. I guarantee you 100% that Jesus will reveal Himself to you.

Jesus reveals Himself to people all over the world. He's saving people in Cork. He's saving people in Ireland. He's saving people all over the world. This is the gospel—it's good news!

It's relational. By the power and the ministry of the Holy Spirit, we can come to know the living God.

God's Amazing Grace

Ephesians is such a wonderful book. It speaks about God's amazing grace, as I mentioned earlier. If we understand the grace of God, we will be eternally grateful. Eternally grateful.

Because, you see, in the eyes of God and according to the Word of God:

Every one of us deserves condemnation
Every one of us have been handed over to sin and under the rule of Satan
Every one of us fall short of His glory
Therefore, we're without hope in this world
We're dead in our sins and transgressions
When we start from that point, we realize that we are hopeless. All the religion and all our own efforts are filthy rags before God and mean nothing to God in terms of earning salvation.

We cannot earn our salvation. We cannot merit it in any way, shape, or form.

You Cannot Earn Salvation

When you go to work—whether it be in Ballincollig or Ballinhasig or Carrigaline or Cork City—you go to work and you earn your wages, and you're paid because you've earned them.

God says: You cannot earn eternal life. You cannot earn your salvation. Someone else has to do it for you. And Jesus has done it for you. He's earned salvation for you. That's God's grace—unmerited favor.

The Gift of Salvation

The Scripture says in Ephesians: "It is by grace you have been saved through faith, not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, that no man may boast."

Listen to it again: It is by grace you have been saved through faith. God's grace. God initiated your salvation. He enabled you to turn and to believe in the name of Jesus Christ.

So God is saying: It's by His grace you can be saved through faith in Jesus. It's not faith in yourself or in your church or in anybody else, but it has to be faith in Jesus of Nazareth—God's Son, His one and only Son.

It will be by grace you've been saved through faith, not of yourselves. It is a gift of God so that no man may boast.

Hallelujah!

No one can stand before God in heaven and say, "I deserve it because I did such and such." No! We all say: "Thank You for the blood of Jesus. Thank You for the Son of God. Praise Your name, O God. You're a Savior—a great Savior."

Living the Christian Life

This is essentially what the Book of Ephesians is about: God's amazing grace and the power He's given us to live the Christian life.

Then He goes on to give instruction about how to live that Christian life. There are up to 40-plus instructions on living the Christian life, but it's done coming from a place of love.

Now that I'm saved, now that I'm born again, I want to obey Jesus. I want to follow Him. I want to put His word into practice. It's not coming out of a place of legalism or rules or regulations or fear—"Well, I must do this."

No! It's: "Lord, thank You so much! Now I want to live like You. I want to imitate Jesus. I'm going to live like Jesus lives."

Practical Instructions

The Unseen Realm

Because the reality is—even if you don't believe it, and we live in such a materialistic world—the Bible says clearly there are powers and rulers and principalities of darkness in the unseen realm.

There are lots of things that exist today that we don't see and yet believe in, such as gravity or the wind. But there's also the unseen realm, and there are forces of wickedness in that unseen realm. They want to destroy you.

But Jesus Christ is stronger. He is the highest name above every name. And the Bible says one day every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

My Prayer for Cork

So my prayer today is that the churches in Cork—and all the churches in Cork—would be like the church in Ephesus, that they would have a burning desire for the love of Jesus and a desire to know Him more, to know Him more, and to mature in the knowledge of Jesus, and to grow up in their faith, and to be productive and fruitful for the Lord in Cork and in Ireland.