Time to Grow Online 8/26/13

What qualities would make us desire to know God?

There are two major qualities that should grip our hearts and make us want to know God.  The first is the fact that He loves us.  This is said often but can be should not be taken lightly.  The type of love that God has for us was enough to send Jesus Christ, His only Son to the cross.  Not for Himself, but for us!

We get a better sense of this by thinking of the small scale example that God showed in the request to Abraham to offer up his son, Isaac.  However, the difference is that Abraham did not have to go through with it.  God did!  There is a part of the Father-Son relationship that was altered because of us.  God turned His back on His Son, when He became sin.  This was done for us!  If the fact of God sending Jesus and Jesus dying for us does not motivate us to know God, there is not much that will (Jn. 3:16). 

The second quality that should make us desire to know God, is the fact that He is trustworthy.  Unlike people, God can always be trusted.  What He says is what He means.  He never has to say, “Oops, I forgot I said that”.  The words that proceed from His mouth carry tremendous power, authority and responsibility (Isa. 55:11).

Before God asks His people to do something, He will display His trustworthiness before us.  This was the case with Abraham, he did not ask him to offer up Isaac without first showing Abraham how trustworthy He is.  The sad fact is that we oftentimes miss out on the fact that Father God is trustworthy.  Therefore, believing that He is no better than the people we interact with all the time.  This is a trick of the enemy!  God can be, should be, if we are going to grow, has to be trusted.  He shows us that He is for us and not against us as we progress through life.  Then there will come a day, when He specifically calls on us to trust Him.  If we have examined His trustworthiness during the times of blessing, we will be able to grow past the time of His calling.  If we have just consumed the blessing, we will get the wrong impression of God (parents and children).  Any relationship, if it is to grow, must be built on trust!

How to transition from knowing about God to knowing God

The main factor is that we have to be willing to spend time with Him.  The only way to get to know God is to spend time with Him.  We must understand who He is, what He does, what He does not do, where He is going, what He is saying.  This all comes through establishing intimate contact with the Father.  These come through prayer (communication with God), bible reading and studying (knowing who He is and what He likes and what He wants) and fellowship with the saints (enablement to see the whole picture).  We do not want to have a Philip knowledge but a Paul knowledge of God (Jn. 14:8; 1 Cor. 2:2).

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