Week Thirteen-Day Five: Knowing God

Trying to be in relationship to God is complicated. We have to live in a constant tension between two diametrically opposed truths.

On the one hand, it is very, very difficult to know God. We have to agree with Pink, “When we turn our thoughts to God’s eternity, His immateriality, His omnipresence, His almightiness, our minds are overwhelmed.” We also have to agree with one of Job’s critical friends, “Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens above – what can you know? Their measure is longer than the sea and wider than the sea.”[1]

During Week Four’s discussion of the holiness of God, we memorized Isaiah 55:8-9. Isaiah says pretty much the same thing. Let’s review those verses.

⁸ “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.
⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

On the other hand, God longs to be known and has made Himself available to us and knowable by us. “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings,” God says through the prophet Hosea. In fact, creation itself is an elaborate display of the nature of God. During Week Five’s discussion of God’s self-revelation, we memorized Psalm 19:1-6. Let’s review.

¹ The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
² Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
³ They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
⁴ Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.
⁵ It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
⁶ It rises at one end of the heavens
and makes its circuit to the other;
nothing is deprived of its warmth.

And God has made Himself known to us supremely in the life of his son Jesus. This is where we will begin next week. In the last part of our discussion of the attributes of God, we will dive into God as a Trinitarian being. In this discussion, we will look at who Jesus was and is. This is going to fun.

BEFORE YOU START YOUR DAY

1. Which verse or phrase from the review this morning caught your attention?Turn it over in your mind for a few minutes.
2. Use this personalized rewording of Ephesians 1:17-19 as the basis for your prayer this morning.

¹⁷ I keep asking that the God of my Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give me the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that I may know him better. ¹⁸ I pray that the eyes of my heart may be enlightened in order that I may know the hope to which he has called me, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, ¹⁹ and his incomparably great power for us who believe.