Knowing God

I don’t know when I was saved. I do believe that conversion happens instantly, that there is a “moment in time” when I was justified/forgiven/saved, but I don’t know when that happened in my life. I know in whom I have believed and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me (2 Timothy 1:12). For that, I am eternally grateful to God for His sovereign grace!

I do have evidences of God’s grace stamped in my life that bring me greater assurances of my salvation than having a date written in my Bible. One of the glorious fruits of conversion in my life, where God in His grace implanted His goodness deep into my heart is the great desire I have to know God. I have, for years, echoed the cry of Paul the Apostle, “the I may know Him” (Philippians 3:10), because I am convinced of the “surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8).

That desire has purified my devotional life – for when I pick up God’s Word to read, I know I am fellowshipping with the King of the Ages and have been granted access into the heart and mind of God. I am not just reading to check off my three chapters a day (though it is easy for me to slip into that mindset….). That is also why I love books like, A.W. Tozer’s, The Pursuit of God and The Knowledge of the Holy and J.I. Packer’s Knowing God.

I’m reading through Knowing God right now, and my heart was blessed and enlarged by the opening paragraphs of chapter three, “Knowing and being known” (which is an excellent chapter!).

What were we made for? To know God.

What aim should we set ourselves in live? To know God.

What is the “eternal life” that Jesus gives? Knowledge of God. “This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (Jn 17:3).

What is the best thing in life, bringing more joy, delight and contentment than anything else? Knowledge of God. “This is what the Lord says: ‘Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me’” (Jer 9:23-24)

What, of all the states God ever sees man in, gives God most pleasure? Knowledge of himself. “I desired… the knowledge of him God more than burnt offerings,” says God (Hos. 6:6 KJV).

[J.I. Packer, Knowing God, p. 33]

What a glorious pursuit! What a rewarding investment of my time and life! Packer says:

“…knowing God is a relationship calculated to thrill a person’s heart.”

May this warm your heart and motivate you, as it did me, to pursue God and experience this great and lasting and ever-increasing thrill.