Category: The value of knowing God and his ways

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My May Letter to You

Hi, here are some happenings and memories of the last few months.

I took this fun photo at Morton Arboretum recently, where an artist has created several giant statues like this.

Nancy and I took a day for an outing to one of our favorite restaurants, the Grande Luxe Cafe, and the Planetarium.
Can you imagine being sealed into this tiny Apollo spacecraft for days and never leaving your seat?

News:

  • At our church we recently had a wonderful experience with prayer for seven weeks. Several people had critical needs related to work and visas, and so the Lord led us to fast and pray on seven Sundays for the moving of mountains in our lives. We invited people to fast from lunch, or breakfast and lunch, and then after our Sunday morning worship service we went to one of our homes and prayed for a couple of hours together. Then we ate together. God answered a number of our prayers, and our relationship with him was deepened. It was a powerful and life-changing experience.
  • I have several months more writing to do on the theme of God’s love. Thinking long about God’s love has changed my life, and I hope yours as well.
  • I’m still writing my book on holiness. This is a labor of love. I revel in the subject of God’s holiness, and I love sharing with others about it, partly because it is so little understood or cherished in our world today. God’s holiness has become lost knowledge.
  • The ministry of this blog has grown to 91 readers who have signed up to receive my weekly email, which is free. If you have not signed up, I invite you to join and belong if you enjoy reading my writing, if you think others could benefit from it, if you want to foster the knowledge of God in as many others as possible, if you want to support this writing ministry and message. One benefit of your signing up, for example, is that it may please God to publish the content of this blog not only online but in the traditional world of book publishing, and book publishers are much more willing to publish a writer who has a “built-in” readership (measured by the number of email subscribers).  You can sign up in the upper-right column of my site, craigbrianlarson.com. Thanks, and welcome to the Knowing God village!

My favorite three posts since my last letter:

My most important, challenging post since my last letter:

Books I’ve been reading:

  • Intercessory Prayer, by Dutch Sheets
  • Future Grace, by John Piper
  • Hearing God, by Dallas Willard
  • The Secret of Guidance, by F. B. Meyer
  • Love Beyond Reason, by John Ortberg

Favorite new website and mobile app: I have known about the free BlueLetterBible.org site for years, but recently I started using it as my main Bible-study resource. Surprisingly, I now prefer it in most ways over my PC’s $350 Bible-study application.

The most interesting mobile app I’ve recently come across is “Read Scripture.” I haven’t used it a lot yet, but what I’ve read has impressed me.

Questions: How can I make this site more valuable to you? How can we have more community and interaction among readers? What are your questions about God and his ways? Please send me an email with your feedback:

Prayer request: I am seeking a publisher for a manuscript I’ve written on the subject of divine testing.

Knowing God: What do you most want to know more about? What are you most curious about? Over time, that is what you will gain understanding in. Curiosity leads to knowledge, for it leads to motivated reading, to conversation and connection over our shared interest, to love of what we study, to the ability to see what others overlook, to further meditation.

God wants us to be curious about him. He wants us to think about him, to meditate on him, to talk with others about him, to ask questions and sing songs and report what we have learned about him. He wants us to have a sense of wonder about him similar to the wonder that scientists and explorers have in their field of study. Not so that we can control or master God, but so that we can know and praise him and relate to him as closely and deeply as possible.

God is deeper and more profound than the greatest questions and theories in mathematics or physics, for he created mathematics and the material world and understands every aspect of it completely.

God is more beautiful and pleasing than a collection of the world’s most beautiful music. He created music. He created Mozart, or whoever writes the music you regard as most wonderful. God could write and play a million songs more beautiful and delightful than any you have ever heard, and the next day write a million more, and the next day a million more. Just for starters. But all these beautiful songs are simply an expression of his own beauty, the music of his own heart and mind, of who he is.

God is more loving than the kindest, most sacrificial person you know. He doesn’t just do love; he is love. Love is his nature, his being, his constitution, for love gives. God upholds all things and gives existence to all things as a continuous expression of his will. He is love, for all things are from him, through him, and to him. He gives and gives and gives as who and what he is.

Therefore, for good reason the Lord says, “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD” (Jeremiah 9:23–24 ESV).

For good reason he commands, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). He knows this brings the good life, the very best life, the ultimate and most satisfying life.

There you have it, my reason for being, my reason for writing, and the purpose of this blog. May you grow in the knowledge of God today. And thereby, may you have the good life.

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Practicing God’s Presence: The Happy Rewards

“Practicing God’s presence is one secret to experiencing all the New Testament promises.”

To grow in our knowledge of God and his ways we must learn to practice God’s presence. This is how we enjoy a personal relationship with God, rather than merely know facts about him.

The normal Christian life

Moreover, practicing God’s presence is foundational to the Spirit-filled life taught in the New Testament. It enables us to have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16). It makes us aware of him throughout the day no matter what we are doing. We will have the fruits of the Holy Spirit in every situation (Gal 5:22–23). It is how we fellowship with God all day.

By practicing God’s presence we obey the Scriptures that tell us to “pray continually” and “give thanks in all circumstances” and “rejoice in the Lord always” and “do all to the glory of God” and “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” and “cast all your anxiety on him” and “abide in Jesus” and “walk in the Holy Spirit.” (1 Thess. 5:17–18; Phil. 4:4; 1 Cor. 10:31; Mark 12:30; 1 Peter 5:7; John 15:4; Gal. 5:25)

The secret of overcomers

Practicing God’s presence is one secret to experiencing all the New Testament promises to those who are a victorious new creation in Christ.

If we are persistently sad, angry, fearful, and discontent, we are not practicing God’s presence. When we regularly feel empty and dry, we are not practicing his presence. If we often feel guilty, distant, and disconnected from the Lord, if we live in continual defeat before some sin or addiction, we are not practicing God’s presence.

God’s presence brings joy. Supernatural peace. Faith and confidence. Satisfaction, contentment, and fullness.

God’s presence is life. His presence is living water and bread from heaven. His presence gives strength and victory.

As we practice God’s presence, we sense his love and gracious intentions. We feel close to him and can bring everything to him moment by moment. He is at our right hand, ever before and around us.

And even when we feel nothing, we will know he is there and hears us. We will not have a sense of doubt and disconnection that makes us feel something is wrong between us and God. We can practice God’s presence even when we do not feel his presence.

Let me say that again because if you miss that you will often feel like a failure. We can successfully practice God’s presence even when we do not feel his presence. (More on that in upcoming posts)

So practicing God’s presence is one secret to the abundant Christian life.

Practicing God’s presence is well within reach

Thankfully it is not hard to do. It is not just for super saints or longtime believers. Even a new Christian can learn it.

Though not hard, it must be learned. We must build new mental habits, which take time.

If you put the teachings in this series into practice, in one or two months you will be well on your way to a transformed life. And then for the rest of your life you will keep learning more.

You will be stronger in the Lord than you imagined possible. You will defeat life-controlling habits. Your Christian life will work.

Does that sound too good to be true? Am I overpromising? I don’t think so.

Certainly we will experience trials, discipline, and struggles all our lives. Certainly we will have ups and downs in practicing God’s presence. We will always have unanswered questions.

But when we practice God’s presence, we walk through these difficulties as overcomers.

An apostle’s example

Paul describes this: “We have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.” (2 Cor. 4:7–10)

And elsewhere, “Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Phil. 4:11–13)

And again, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom. 8:37–39)

This is the victorious life possible for those who practice God’s presence. We will learn how in upcoming posts.

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What Gives Me Worth?

Self-worth and self-esteem

We need to feel we have value

Where do you find your sense of worth? If you were a boastful person, what would you boast about?

The LORD says, “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me” (Jeremiah 9:23–24).

If a person boasts, it is because one of the strongest motivations in life is to find significance, importance, worth. We need to feel we have value. It is crushing to think that we are worthless or inferior to others. Whether we boast or not, we all pursue significance.

How we pursue self-worth

We need to be aware of how we try to get worth and how that affects our motivations.

Unfortunately, we may choose insignificant ways to get significance. We seek worth through success, or money, beauty, a chiseled body, knowledge, skill, achievements, power, position, love, fame.

None of these are wrong in themselves, but they do not add to our worth.

And they can be hard to get.

If we fall short of these, our ego will find something to take pride in, even trivial things. Things like whether our pants or shoes are in style. The success of our sports team. The brands we use and how much we paid. The speed and capacity of our technology. Our race, haircut, or knowledge of trivia. The ability to cook a particular dish. A collection of bottles.

We are so voracious for significance that we can take pride in literally anything.

How God gives self-worth

Jeremiah 9:23–24, quoted above, says that there is only one legitimate, effective way to find significance: by knowing God.

That is because God alone is intrinsically worthy, significant, and glorious, and he alone gives worth to his creation. When he gives worth, that worth is enormous.

When he speaks a word of approval or honor, then sooner or later every living human and angel will recognize that worth and likewise give honor. If God does not approve, if he dishonors someone or something, then it will pass away and be forgotten.

So boasting is okay under just one condition: if we are humbly boasting in our relationship with God, fully aware that God is the one who gets all the credit.

But in a sense, we proudly boast in the glory of God. We don’t feel second-rate because we find our worth in him or that he is second best to all the cool things to boast about in this world.

If you know God, if you know how to walk with him as he requires, if you know the wisdom he reveals in his Word, if you know Jesus Christ as Savior, if you know his character and nature, if you love him and delight in your personal relationship with him through prayer throughout each day, you don’t need to prop up your ego with the passing trophies of this world. You have the greatest significance possible.

Signs that you pursue your self-worth in God

What indicates that you find your significance in knowing God? Three things come quickly to mind:

  • How much you read the Bible
  • Whether you connect with God in prayer throughout each day
  • Struggling with feelings of inferiority or envy if you compare yourself to others

Would you agree? What would you add to this list?  Contribute to the Knowing God community by sharing a comment below.

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Ultimate Experience: The God Like Us and Unlike Us

Text art "Ultimate experience

 

The ads that blanket your world
beckon you to trivial things.
Here is the great, the awesome,
and the only worthy pursuit.

 

In my previous posts in this series, we saw that knowing God is the ultimate experience because he is good, perfect, personal, and superior. In this post we see that…

Knowing God is the ultimate experience because he is both like and unlike us.

What attracts men to women and women to men?

Much of the spark of sexual attraction is the difference between the sexes, not only the difference between the male and female bodies, but also the difference in emotions and perspective. Men and women think differently.

But we are also the same. We share human nature. We are persons capable of conversation and creativity. We share in having mind, will, and emotions. We share in having dreams and hopes, loves and loathings.

You can love your dog, horse, or cat, but your relationship with humans has the potential to be far richer than what you can have with an animal (notice that I used the word potential).

We tend to make friends with people who have something strongly in common with us.

Like the electricity between men and women, knowing God is full of wonder because he is both like and unlike us.

Similar to God

God created us in his image, so we resemble him.

Like God, we are personal and relational. We are rational. We both have a will and make choices. We both are alive. We both are moral beings attuned to right and wrong.

Because God created us in his image, we by nature can understand many things about him intuitively as we think about him, and as we read about him in Scripture and ponder his creation.

Because we have much in common with God, we can have a deeply satisfying relationship with him. This relationship has the potential to be far deeper than we can have with any human, animal, or lifeless thing.

Different than God

But God is also very different from us.

He is divine, we are human. He is eternal and uncreated. We are short-lived and created. He created us; we did not create him.

So we are two infinitely different orders of being.

God has no limits. We are limited in every way.

God exists on his own, perfectly independent, with no need for anyone or anything but himself. We are completely dependent on him for everything, every heartbeat, every breath, for existence itself.

God is holy. He is other. He is unique.

And this makes him intriguing. This makes us curious.

Boom

Put these similarities and differences together and you have more than a spark, more than electricity—you have lightning and thunder.

You have the most exciting, interesting, and mysterious experience available.

Therefore, knowing God is the ultimate obsession.

 

We will look next Monday at more reasons why knowing God is the ultimate experience.

Do you like this? Please share it with others.

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Ultimate Experience: The Infinitely Superior God

Text art "Ultimate experience

 

The ads that blanket your world
beckon you to trivial things.
Here is the great, awesome,
and only worthy pursuit.

 

In my previous post in this series, we saw that knowing God is the ultimate experience because he is good, perfect, and personal. In this post we see that…

Knowing God is the ultimate experience because he is infinitely superior to us in every imaginable way.

 

I like to experience people who are better than me. (That’s not hard to find.)

Of course, every person we meet is superior to us in many ways, but we don’t always have occasion to experience it. But when I do, something good comes into my life.

One man in our church is an outstanding cook, with a specialty in making desserts. For many special events he has made gourmet cheesecakes that are the best I have ever tasted. At our last Thanksgiving meal he made a pumpkin cheesecake with homemade whip cream.

He is a blessing to me and everyone in the church for who he is, and he is a blessing to us in this particular way of being a superior dessert chef. I enjoy many things about him, including his superior ability in this area.

People with superior knowledge, ability, experience, character, faith and so on bring more to us than we have. They bring what we need or want, but lack.

God is superior to us.

He is infinitely superior.

He is superior in every imaginable way.

As a result, he brings unlimited benefit to us in every imaginable way.

Divine Superiority

Being around God is like being an amateur violinist and spending a year getting personal daily training from the greatest violinist who ever lived.

Only that great violinist is not only better than anyone ever, not only twice as good or thrice as good or ten times better. This great violinist is not just a hundred times more skilled or a thousand or a million times more skilled than any violist ever. He is literally infinitely more skilled.

That means there is no limit to how superior he is to any other violinist.

That is what God’s superiority to us is. No exaggeration. He has unlimited, perfect virtue and ability.

He created us and our ability. We have no ability or virtue on our own. Literally zero.

So for a human to be around God is for someone who has zero to be around someone who has infinite supply.

Divine omnicompetence

Not only is God infinitely good at what he is good at, he is good at everything. Everything. There is nothing God cannot do, and do infinitely well.

He doesn’t do anything less than perfect, infinitely excellent, and wonderfully superior.

God is superior in knowledge and wisdom. Love and kindness. Joy and peace. Power and energy. Creativity and imagination. Goodness and virtue. Authority and glory. Righteousness and purity.

Not only is good superior to us in every way, he has ways to be superior that we don’t. It’s as though we own three musical instruments, and he owns dozens of instruments. He plays instruments we don’t have. And plays them perfectly.

God is the ultimate. As a result, he is the most interesting being in the universe. And will always be so.

We will never exhaust the pleasures of knowing his superiority.

Divine Generosity

I like to experience God because he is generous with what he has. He likes to give. He likes to share his superiority.

Another word that describes God’s superiority is glory. God is glorious and he delights to show and share his glory.

Therefore, knowing God is the ultimate experience, the ultimate obsession.

 

We will look next Monday at more reasons why knowing God is the ultimate experience.

Do you like this? Please share it with others.

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Ultimate Experience: The Divine Person

Text art "Ultimate experience

 

The ads that blanket your world
beckon you to trivial things.
Here is the great, the awesome,
and the only worthy pursuit.

 

In my previous post in this series, we saw that knowing God is the ultimate experience because he is good and because he is perfect. In this post we see that…

Knowing God is the ultimate experience because he is a divine person, not an impersonal thing or force.

God is he, not it.

That means we can have a relationship with him. He has mind, will, and emotions. He is alive. He has experiences. He communicates. He plans, desires, intends, enjoys.

We know God in the way we know a person, not the way we know math tables.

Disappointed Dreams

At some point in our lives we all have dreamed about obtaining some thing.

I have enjoyed photography since I was a teenager and over the years have bought three SLR cameras.

I don’t buy on a whim. With big purchases like that I research the product and prices thoroughly and usually pray about the decision for six months to a year before pulling the trigger. (I usually feel guilty about buying something like a camera and wait until I feel permission from God to do it.)

After waiting that long, I’m excited when the box comes in the mail.

With my last camera purchase a few years ago I enjoyed carefully unboxing the camera and patiently learning its features. I marveled at how much the technology had advanced since I bought my previous camera. I was impressed with the quality of the pictures. I was more than satisfied with the product and the purchase.

But the experience of owning and using the camera did not match my dreams of getting it. Likewise with lenses I have purchased for it. Likewise with every thing I have ever owned.

Things can’t bring as much lasting happiness as good people and healthy relationships. The reason bad people and unhealthy relationships are so painful is due to the tremendous power of people and relationships. When they are good, there is nothing better.

And that is why knowing God is so satisfying. God is the perfectly good person. With him we can have the perfect relationship.

God Is Love

God is a relater by nature. He is Trinity, three persons, one God. He has been in a relationship of love for all eternity.

Knowing God is dynamic. Our relationship changes and grows. There is give and take, back and forth.

We enjoy fellowship and togetherness. There is presence and absence. There is learning. There is knowing and being known, loving and being loved.

Knowing God brings joy as only a relationship, only a person, can. We are social, relational beings by nature, and that is because God made us in his image. God is social.

The pain of loneliness shows we were created for relationship.

Relating to people satisfies a need in our soul we do not fully understand. As we know God better, our need for relationship is met in an ultimate way.

 

We will look next Monday at more reasons why God is the ultimate pursuit.

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Ultimate Experience: The Good and Perfect God

Text art "Ultimate experience

 

The ads that blanket your world
beckon you to trivial things.
Here is the great, the awesome,
and the only worthy pursuit.
Jeremiah puts into words the heartbeat of this blog:

“Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (Jeremiah 9:23–24)

Knowing God and his ways is the ultimate pursuit. The grandest ambition. The most satisfying goal.

Here are just a few reasons why.

First, knowing God is the ultimate experience because he is good.

I like to be around things that are good. Food is good. Sunshine and warm temperatures are good. Music is good. Parks and trees and fields and nature paths are good.

I like to be around people that are good. Good people are generous and kind. Good people are honest and authentic. They are encouraging and hopeful. They stretch me. They comfort me. They heal me. They teach me.

The great news is that God is infinitely good, and being around him is the ultimate good. The more you can get of God the more good that comes into your life. And God’s goodness never cloys or becomes harmful in the way that eating too much will hurt you. God is a good you can never get too much of.

Second, knowing God is the ultimate pursuit because he is perfect.

God has no faults and makes no mistakes. Ever. He is perfect in knowledge, perfect in wisdom.

God never miscalculates or misjudges. He never has to change, grow, or mature. He does not change because he cannot improve.

Whatever God does, we can be assured he has handled the situation exactly as it should be handled.

I am drawn to that because I am not perfect, and that brings endless problems. Because I am so deeply flawed, I want to know the God who is willing to lead me toward perfection.

That is what God has planned for his followers. Jesus said, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

The Bible describes the people who have already died and gone into God’s presence in heaven as “the righteous made perfect” (Hebrews 12:23).

God is working to make us “perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:4).

So I love getting to know him. I want him to correct all my faults. I want him to fix me. I want to be better, and only God can get me there.

 

We will look next Monday at more reasons why God is the ultimate pursuit.

Do you like this? Please share it with others.