“The people who know their God will be strong and do great exploits” Daniel 11:32

When the Lord began to open my eyes to the importance of knowing God, I started to study His attributes and His names. I learned many great truths about God and was tremendously blessed. One of the things I learned was that according to the Westminster catechism, our main reason for being alive is to “glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.”

About that time in my spiritual journey, God sent a young man to live with us for several months. He talked a lot about enjoying God. Following his example, I began to make it a habit to enjoy my relationship with God. I invited Him into every part of my day, not just when I had my quiet time.

Gradually, I began to change. Instead of my relationship with God consisting of me just asking for things, I began to discuss everything with Him. I began thanking Him everywhere — while driving, walking, working, or shopping — anytime, anywhere. Talking to God all day long became a habit — a good habit.

 I now enjoy my relationship with God. How about you?

Father, what a privilege to know that You delight in our fellowship — that You are actually waiting for us to come to You. What deep, deep satisfaction You give. Thank You so much for the privilege of knowing You. Amen.

by Katherine Kehler
used by permission

Further Reading

How to Know God

Open My Eyes

Never too Old

I Want to Know Him

The Only Totally Fair Judge!

God is GOOD

The post Knowing God appeared first on Thoughts About God.

“My ears have heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you” Job 42:5

Someone once said that whenever we read the Bible, we should read it to get to know God better — not just to store up Biblical knowledge.

Dr. J. Packer has this advice for us.

“How can we turn our knowledge about God into knowledge of God? The rule for doing so is demanding, but simple. It is that we turn each truth that we learn about God into a matter for meditation before God, leading to prayer and praise of God.”

Through the years of walking with God, He has taught me not only more about Him, but also pointed out many misconceptions that I have about Him.

“They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny Him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good” (Titus 1:16).

Sometimes I ask myself: Are my actions and thoughts glorifying Him, or are they detestable in His sight?

Not long ago during my quiet time, while reading about the instructions God gave Moses and Aaron regarding the ceremonies of the high priests, I was struck with the importance of absolute obedience. Thankfully, His Holy Spirit enables us to obey Him. I want to serve Him with all my heart.

Another reason I want to know God is because the Bible tells us,

“The people who know their God will be strong and do great exploits” (Daniel 11:32). I want my life to count, and I want to do what counts for all eternity. My prayer is that I would be like the servant who was given some talents and multiplied them — not the fearful one who buried his.

Do you want to know God? Do you want to see Him?

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8).

Ask Him to point out any sin in your life, and then confess and ask Him to take control of your life again.

God is love, and He is holy and powerful. He is good and compassionate and He is just, sovereign, and wise. He is all of these attributes at the same time, and many more.

Father, open our eyes so we can see You. Purify our hearts so we can see You better. Amen.

How to Know God Personally

By Katherine Kehler
used by permission

FURTHER READING

• How to Know God Personally
• Attributes of God
• Testimonials

The post Open My Eyes appeared first on Thoughts About God.

You do not know what you are going to do;

The only thing you know is that God knows what He is doing.*

God Knows. The great challenge of faith is that we live and move in uncertainty. I chuckle to myself whenever I hear people lay out life plans: we’re going to finish college before we get married; we’ll wait a few years and get settled into jobs, then start a family. Or, We’re going to move to a cheaper area and work for a while so we can save money, then we’ll move back and be able to buy a house.

The encourager in me cheers on the young couple; the realist wants to start asking, “But what if…?”; the arrogant Bible student in me (yes, he’s there) wants to quote

James 4:13-17
“ Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”

God didn’t tell Abram where to go, he just told him to go; I wonder how Sarai felt about that. Jonah was told exactly where to go, and he went the other direction; God compelled a smelly, messy U-turn. Saul (the future evangelist, not the king) was following his plan when God interrupted with a blinding flash; he ended up finishing that journey, but with a very different purpose.

Plans are good and necessary; they help us make decisions today that would be more difficult without some idea of what we wanted to do tomorrow. But for those who want to follow God, our plans need to be held loosely. And when they don’t work out, we must lean on the One who is always certain.

God does not tell you what He is going to do; He reveals to you who He is.*

Know God. No matter how well planned, the future is always uncertain. Even when plans are going just as we … well, planned, life can change in an instant: Cancer. Car accident. Market crash. Layoff. Miscarriage. Or, as with a student teacher I met recently, someone else’s innocent mistake years back has rippled forward and disrupted everything, potentially laying to waste all the work and schooling and training she has done.

When plans are interrupted, life can spiral out of control. Emotions spin, hearts drain, motivation dies. We go from living to existing, and that in the cold, persistent grey of a Seattle winter. Questions drip from the dark clouds, slowly building in intensity until all life is a storm and spiritual vertigo blinds us to any sense of direction.

And it is there amid the tempest that God meets us. There we—like the Psalmist—find in God a refuge. He becomes shield and shepherd, guide and guardian. In the cancer, he is Comforter. After the layoff, he is Provider. In the waiting, he is Emmanuel, God With Us. In the injustice, Merciful.

God is not always who we want him to be, when we want him to be it. In the hospital, we want Healer more than Comforter. In the courthouse we want Judge, not Mercy (unless I am the one on trial). After the layoff, I want a job, not charity.

God rarely meets our expectations—and always exceeds them.

In the midst of the storms of his life, Job had endless questions for God; none was answered. In the end, he only had a new glimpse of the Almighty, and that was sufficient. Saul, too, received new spiritual eyes (though, ironically, he is believed to have had very poor physical eyesight). The blind man’s prayer, “I want to see,” should be our cry when life’s circumstances blind us. The vision we need is not to see the road, but to see God, to know him in ways we have not yet perceived.

Jesus said, “This is eternal life: that they may know you….”

When only God knows, may we know God.

*Quotes are from My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers.

By Randy Ehle
Used by Permission
https://randehle.com/

FURTHER READING

• We Plan – God Directs
• Unexpected Turns on Your Pathway
• Perplexing Journey

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The post God Knows – Know God appeared first on Thoughts About God.