Knowing God.

Yesterday I shared some thoughts on the sufficiency of Christ and his work on the cross. My mind has been running extra fast on theological thoughts because I am in the process of preparing my doctrinal statement for heavy scrutiny by the Denver Seminary faculty. While I think this process is good and extremely beneficial, it has also helped to uncover some spiritual things in my own life, particularly in the area of knowing God. Those of us that have attended seminary will inevitably at some point, go through a complex of thinking we know God better than those around us. I certainly have. Being able to parse Greek verbs and make long theological explanations to simple questions gives off an attitude of superiority. However, I would submit that wherever we are in our relationship with God… humility needs to be first and foremost. An so, God smackd me in the face as I meditated on a chapter of J.I. Packer’s “Knowing God” this morning. He asserts that despite all our knowledge about God, we may not actually know him as well as we think. Here are four tidbits from the chapter that show the evidence of knowing God…

1. Those who know God have great energy for God.

If you are a follower of the Lord Jesus, do you have great energy to do his work? I’ll admit, there have been times in my life that I have felt like I had seemingly unending energy for the work of the Gospel. And there have been times when quite the opposite were true. But if we do not have energy to serve our Lord, how are others to see that we know him? Truly knowing God is seen when we expend every ounce of our energy serving him.

2. Those who know God have great thoughts of God.

Last week in the high school small group that I lead we took some time to pray and declare God’s greatness. This is a great way to start our prayers as we meditate on who our God is… but do those thoughts dominate our minds throughout the week? If we want to know God we need to allow all our thoughts to drift to our Great God.

3. Those who know God show great boldness for God.

This includes but is not limited to sharing our faith with those around us, even if it means rejection. Those who know God are not afraid to speak on his behalf and let that boldness be evident in their life. Maybe that happens at school, work, or in a family that doesn’t know the Lord. Maybe that boldness happens in how we handle our finances or our future. While the boldness can be manifested in many ways… it remains that if we know the Lord, we will not be afraid to admit it.

4. Those who know God have great contentment in God.

Hmmm… perhaps this is the most difficult one. I know in my own life I show little contentment. I am always looking to buy the next sleek technological device, or take a cool trip, or complain to God that I don’t have some of the things that I want. God’s answer most often to me is… MY GRACE IS SUFFICIENT. We often want more, but if we know God it will be seen in our contentment of him.

I would encourage your to meditate on Philippians 3:7-11.