Consumed with Knowing God

love

Read Jeremiah 9:23-24; Hosea 6:6; John 17:3. What do these verses teach us this morning? What does God desire of His people? What will bring us more joy and delight and comfort and peace than anything else? What one thing ought we to be consumed with today and forever?

KNOWING GOD

Our number one objective each and every day is to know God more and more. Everything else falls into its rightful place when we truly know the greatness and promises of God. When we grasp His sovereignty, His omnipotence, His immutability, His omnipresence - everything takes it rightful place.

Think about this: the one true God of the universe, the Almighty Creator, has offered Himself to His creation to be known. He has allowed us to know Him, to have fellowship with Him. Realize this, grasp the weight of this fact this morning TCO.

Think of the comfort that floods our soul when we grasp that in spite of the fact that God knows everything about me, the very worst to the very best, and yet He offers me friendship through the gospel.

The same God who took Joseph from prison to become Pharaoh's Prime Minister is taking you and I from being Satan's prisoner and transferring us to a position of friendship, namely sonship through adoption. That we can know God and enjoy God forever. That we can enjoy being loved and cared for by God.

God's love is foreign in this way (1 John 3:1), unique, in that it is the most utterly realistic love we will ever know. Think on this: He truly knows all there is to know about us, meaning there is nothing that will come to light or be discovered about me that could disillusion God about me, could cause Him to retract the gospel and His friendship from me. And in spite of that knowledge, God offers Himself to me in covenant loyalty.

Don't let the wonder of that fact escape you this morning. Don't turn your back on this invitation this morning and every other morning you tarry on this earth.

How we enjoy God and know God is thru the Word primarily. See John 1; 14:6, 9. We know God by knowing Jesus thru knowing the Word. Don't turn your back on God this morning by ignoring His Word. Don't miss the blessing offered you today.

Read John 10:27; Read all the "I AM'S" in John 6, 8, 10, 11, 14 etc. Read Matthew 11:28-9 this morning and know God in these ways. Don't forfeit these thru ignorance, through laziness and distraction with lesser things.

Make this personal. Back to knowing versus knowing about. Being a balconeer versus being a traveler. Don't settle for superficial knowledge of God, or second hand knowledge of God. Make it personal thru daily devotion and time spent in the Word and meditating on the Word.

Make it personal through obedience. Ps. 34:8 says "taste and see that the Lord is good." Make it personal through obeying and seeking to obey. Walk by faith.

Be in awe this morning of the grace involved in this. We do not make friends with God - God makes friends with us. He is the initiator and He has done just that through the grace of the cross. Through the grace of Christ. Through the grace of the Word. See Gal. 4:9 where this is clear. God has made Himself known.

Be in awe of the fact that God knows you this morning. Run to God this morning through the Word, prayer, through Christ. Know Him this morning and beyond. Be buttressed, steadfast and immovable, always abounding in grace thru knowing and being known by God. That He is for us and not against us through Christ.

And as Phil. 4:4-9 says, may the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. May we be this light to those around us through knowing and being known by God.