In preparing for a talk I’m giving Sunday during the hour before the worship service, I’ve been rereading a favorite book, Knowing God by J.I. Packer. Years ago I highlighted a section that still blesses me clear down to my socks every time I read it. Here’s just a portion . . .
“What matters supremely, therefore, is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it — the fact that He knows me. I am graven on the palms of His hands. I am never out of His mind. All my knowledge of Him depends on His sustained initiative in knowing me. I know Him, because He first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, one who loves me, and there is no moment when His eye is off me, or His attention distracted from me, and no moment therefore, when His care falters.
“This is momentous knowledge. There is unspeakable comfort — the sort of comfort that energizes, be it said, not enervates — in knowing that God is constantly taking knowledge of me in love, and watching over me for my good. There is tremendous relief in knowing that His love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench his determination to bless me. There is, certainly , great cause for humility in the thought that He sees all the twisted things about me that my fellow-men do not see (and am I glad!), and that He sees more corruption in me than that which I see ini myself (which in all conscience, is enough).
“There is, however, equally great incentive to worship and love God in the thought that, for some unfathomable reason, He wants me as His friend, and desires to be my friend, and has given His Son to die for me in order to realize this purpose.”
(Diane again) Amen! What incentive to worship, praise, and adore our God! Consider these verses and be blessed all over again . . .
So the Lord said to Moses . . .
you have found grace in my sight,
and I know you by name.
Exodus 33:17 NKJV
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you;
before you were born I sanctified you.
Jeremiah 33:5 NKJV
I am the good shepherd and I know my sheep
and am known by my own.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them,
and they follow me.
John 10: 14, 27
A thought to tuck in your heart this day: I know Him, because He first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, one who loves me, and there is no moment when His eye is off me, or His attention distracted from me, and no moment therefore, when His care falters.
1 Comment
November 25, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Fantastic affair, did not thought reading it would be so cool when I looked at your title with link!