Knowing God...

How can we fully know God?

Does the praise of finite beings always reflect an imperfect understanding of Him who is infinite? Isn't it an insult to value God as less than He is? Then how can anyone truly praise him? Yet Scripture says we can and must! Though praise is conceived in our imperfect perception of God, it grows into wonder and worship. Praise is made acceptable when it is expanded by the sense of awe that God is infinitely beyond our comprehension. That humble realization draws us closer to Him, brings us deeper into His love.

      The desire of David's heart, like Paul's, was to know God and to be continually enjoying His presence:

 "My soul thirsteth for God" (Ps 42:2; 63:1); "One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may...behold the beauty of the Lord" (Ps 27:4); "I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord ...that I may know him" (Phil 3:8-10). Could anything else be more worthwhile? "Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face; and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace."

        As a young Christian I thought that Hebrews 11: 6: "he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him"; was the formula for getting things from God. If I would seek Him, as the verse prescribed, then He would reward me with the "things of earth" that I wanted. How could I have missed the fact that I was to "diligently seek Him"? And how could I truly seek Him if what I really wanted was not Him at all but other things?  What is it that I wanted, God or that I received things!

What would be the result if all we wanted was God, and He would reward us with Himself? Nothing less than a taste of heaven here on earth! "Joy unspeakable and full of glory", 1 Pt 1:8.     

  Heaven, we give it too little thought. It's the place where everyone wants to go—but not just yet. For many Christians heaven is a last resort, welcome only when they are too old or too ill to enjoy the pleasures of this world.

How can we truly desire God's presence in our lives here and now if we only reluctantly exchange earth for heaven? To be in heaven is to be in His presence. Do we really desire and enjoy God's presence? Wouldn't that be like being in church all the time - bored, restless, watching the clock, eager for it to end? What further proof is needed that there is very little of God in most churches and in many believers, in spite of claims to the contrary?

God is a God of joy! To be in His presence is to be supremely happy! Jesus welcomes to heaven His faithful followers with these words: "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord" Mat 25:21, 23; joy eternal.

 David knew it: "in thy presence is fullness of joy and at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore", Ps. 16:11. We begin to know that joy even now in this life as we give ourselves totally into His hands and rest in His love, trusting Him completely. That is when we begin to experience with wonder, "The joy of the Lord is your strength", Neh. 8:10.

There is a hymn that begins, "There's joy in following Jesus, every moment of every day." Great joy for us and for Him: "He will rejoice over thee with joy...he will joy over thee with singing", Zep. 3:17. Hab. 3:18 says, "I will joy in the God of my salvation". The closer to God we walk in holiness, the greater our joy; "and let thy saints shout for joy", Ps 132:9. As the hymn writer put it, "When God is near my heart leaps up in ecstasy, and all the world's a paradise when God is near."

Our circumstances may get worse, but God has not changed! Our earthly condition, no matter how difficult, is temporary and will soon be past—but our heavenly home is eternal and remains secure. That hope should bring joy: "Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing", Rom. 15:13. Yes, in - "believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory" 1 Pt. 1:8; a joy that makes us strong, enabling us to live above our circumstances and to demonstrate to all who observe us that God is good and that we are in His hands.

There is considerable talk about "spiritual warfare" these days, and it often involves much error and extremism. So many Christians spend time "rebuking" demons. Our time would be much better spent in praising God. Instead of focusing so much attention upon Satan and giving him so much credit. Often what many Christian's think is the enemy's attack is actually their own flesh wanting the control, or wanting to manipulate things that are not happening the way they want them to. So we go around rebuking devils instead of looking in our own heart because there lays the real problem.

 Let's give thanks that "greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world", 1 John 4:4. Our victory is in thanksgiving, praise and joy!

Before we can learn to trust that God is in control of all of life’s circumstances, we have to answer some questions;  1. Is God really in control? 2. How much control does He have? 3. If He is not in complete control, then who/what is? 4. How can I learn to trust that He is in control and rest in that? I will try to answer here:

 Is God really in control? The concept of the control of God over everything is called the “sovereignty” of God. Nothing gives us strength and confidence like an understanding of the sovereignty of God in our lives. God’s sovereignty is defined as His complete and total independent control over every creature, event, and circumstance at every moment in history. Subject to none, influenced by none, absolutely independent, God does what He pleases, only as He pleases, always as He pleases. God is in complete control of every molecule in the universe at every moment, and everything that happens is either caused or allowed by Him for His own perfect purposes.

“The LORD of hosts has sworn, saying, ‘Surely, as I have thought, so it shall come to pass, And as I have purposed, so it shall stand’” Isaiah 14:24. Nothing is random or comes by chance, especially not in the lives of believers. He “purposed” it. That means to deliberately resolve to do something. God has resolved to do what He will do and nothing and no one stands in His way. “I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please” Isaiah 46:10. This is our powerful, purposeful God who is in control of everything. That should bring us great comfort and help to alleviate our fears.

Exactly how much control does God have? God’s total sovereignty over all creation directly contradicts the philosophy of open theism, which states that God doesn’t know what’s going to happen in the future any more than we do, so He has to constantly be changing His plans and reacting to what the sinful creatures do as they exercise their free will. God isn’t finding out what’s going to happen as events unfold. He is continuously, actively running things—ALL things—here and now. But to think He needs our cooperation, our help, or the exercise of our free will to bring His plans to pass puts us in control over Him, which makes us God. Where have we heard that lie before? It’s a rehash of Satan’s same old lie from the Garden—you shall be like God (Genesis 3:5). Our wills are only free to the extent that God allows us that freedom and no farther. “All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: ‘What have you done?’” Daniel 4:35. No one’s free will trumps the sovereignty of God.

Some people find it appealing to think that Satan has control over a certain amount of life, that God is constantly revising His plans to accommodate Satan’s tricks. The book of Job is a clear illustration of just who has the sovereign power and who doesn’t. Satan came to God and in effect said “Job only serves you because you protect him.” So God gave Satan permission to do certain things to Job but no more (Job 1:6-22). Could Satan do more than that? No. God is in control over Satan and his demons who try to thwart God’s plans at every step.

Satan knew from the Old Testament that God’s plan was for Jesus to come to the earth, be betrayed, crucified and resurrected, and provide salvation for millions, and if there was any way to keep that from happening, Satan would have done it. If just one of the hundreds of prophecies about the Messiah could have been caused by Satan to fail to come to pass, the whole thing would have collapsed. But the numbers of independent, “free will” decisions made by thousands of people were designed by God to bring His plan to pass in exactly the way He had planned it from the beginning and Satan couldn’t do a thing about it.

Jesus was “delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God” Acts 2:23. No action by the Romans, the Pharisees, Judas, or anyone else kept God’s plan from unfolding exactly the way He purposed it from before the foundation of the world. Ephesians 1 says we were chosen in Him before the world was even created. We were in the mind of God to be saved by faith in Christ. That means God knit together Satan’s rebellion, Adam and Eve’s sin, the fall of the human race, and the death and crucifixion of Christ—all seemingly terrible events—to save us before He created us. Here is a perfect example of God working all things together for good, Romans 8:28.

Unlimited in power, unrivalled in majesty, and not prevented by anything outside Himself, our God is in complete control of all circumstances, causing or allowing them for His own good purposes and plans to be fulfilled exactly as He has foreordained.

The only way to trust in God’s sovereign control and rest in it is to know God. Know His attributes, know what He has done in the past, and this builds confidence in Him. Daniel 11:32b says “the people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits.” We can rejoice in our God’s sovereignty, because it is overshadowed by His goodness, His love, His mercy, His compassion, His faithfulness, and His holiness.

But we can’t trust someone we don’t know and there is only one way to know God—through His Word. There is no magic formula to make us spiritual giants overnight, no mystical prayer to pray three times a day to mature us, build our faith and make us towers of strength and confidence. There is only the Bible, the single source of power that will change our lives from the inside out. But it takes effort, persistence, and effort to know the God who controls everything. If we fill our minds and hearts with the Word of God, the sovereignty of God will become clear to us, and we will rejoice in it because we will know Him intimately and will be able to completely trust the God who controls all things for His perfect purpose.

Most people would define peace of mind as the absence of mental stress and anxiety. The expression “peace of mind” invokes images of yoga, where people sit in meditation and try to become calm, and find comfort, and peace. The only time “peace of mind” is found in the Bible is the NIV translation of 2 Corinthians 2:13 where Paul says he found no “peace of mind” because he didn’t find Titus in Troas. The literal translation of this phrase is “rest of my spirit.”

The Bible uses the word “peace” in several different ways. Peace sometimes refers to a state of friendship between God and man. This peace between a holy God and sinful mankind has been effected by Christ’s sacrificial death, “having made peace through the blood of his cross” Colossians 1:20. In addition, as High Priest the Lord Jesus maintains that state of friendship on behalf of all who continue to “come to God by Him, seeing He always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). This state of friendship with God is a precondition for the second kind of peace, which sometimes refers to a tranquil mind. It is only when “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” Romans 5:1, that we can experience the true peace of mind that is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, in other words, His fruit exhibited in us (Galatians 5:22).

Isaiah 26:3 tells us that God will keep us in “perfect peace” if our minds are “stayed” on Him, meaning our minds lean on Him, center on Him, and trust in Him. Our tranquility of mind is “perfect” or imperfect to the degree that the “mind is stayed on” God rather than ourselves or on our problems. Peace is experienced as we believe what the Bible says about God’s nearness as in Psalm 139: 1-12, and about His goodness and power, His mercy and love for His children, and His complete sovereignty over all of life’s circumstances. But we can’t trust someone we don’t know, and it is crucial, therefore, to come to know intimately the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ!

Peace is experienced as a result of prayer. “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” Philippians 4:6-7.

A peaceful mind and heart are experienced as a result of recognizing that an all-wise and loving Father has a purpose in our trials. “We know that all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose” Romans 8:28.

God can bring a variety of good things, including peace, from the difficulties which we experience. Even the discipline and chastening of the Lord will “yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness” in our lives Hebrews 12:11. They provide a fresh opportunity for “hoping in God” and eventually “praising Him” (Psalm 43:5). They help us “comfort” others when they undergo similar trials (2 Corinthians 1:4), and they “achieve for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” 2 Corinthians 4:17.

Peace of mind and the tranquility of spirit are only available when we have true peace with God through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross in payment of our sins. Those who attempt to find peace in worldly pursuits will find themselves sadly deceived. For Christians, however, peace of mind is available through the intimate knowledge of, and complete trust in, the God who meets “all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus” Philippians 4:19.

May each of us who are Christ followers fully come to know God!