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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.

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Knowing God in a Personal Way

For several weeks I thought about what should be the prime focus of this blog. I settled on this: I realized my great passion is knowing God and his ways.

That has been my pursuit since I surrendered my life to Christ at age 19. I immediately began devouring the Bible. The idea that this book had the ultimate truth, about what mattered most, captured my soul. Since then I have been thinking about this book and the God who wrote it on a daily basis.

The Bible is not a simple book, and God is not a simple person. The more I read, the more I saw the challenge of fitting everything in this sacred book together. For example, sometimes God is the most merciful and forbearing person imaginable and at other times he seems quick to anger and quick to judge. How does this all fit together? Making it all fit is my passion.

Knowing God in an experiential way

Because I want to know God, not just about God. I want to know God like I know a person I spend time with, not like a person I read a systematic theology about. I want to know God relationally, knowing him as someone I communicate with, rely on, follow, and love all throughout the day. I want to know his ways based on experience with him, not just principles. I want to know how to pray in a way that pleases him and receives answers.

I want to know how faith works, the kind of faith that is powerful and effective (see James 5:16), especially because faith and unbelief were the qualities Jesus commented on most often in his interactions with people. Teachings about faith have been abused, but that does not mean we should avoid the subject. Faith matters.

And so I’m persistently trying to learn how faith works because I want to depend completely on God, put all my weight on his words, take his words seriously, and live as though they are true—because they are. This is what it means to know God and his ways.

I have been trying hard for years to practice God’s presence, in the manner described in the book The Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence. This is at the core of how I know God. It has helped me enormously.

The Crucial Role of the Holy Spirit in Knowing God

I have been trying hard for many years to learn how to work with the Holy Spirit and his gifts. I have been trying for a long time to learn how to “hear God.”

(I put “hearing God” in parentheses not because I don’t think it is possible to hear God. Rather, normally when we use that phrase we mean something less than hearing God audibly, or even hearing words in our minds that we think are God’s words. I believe that God does guide and give his thoughts, just not very often in a conversational, “he said” “I said,” sort of way. At least that is my experience.).

I believe Zechariah 4:6 expresses God’s heart: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord of hosts.” God wants kingdom work to be Spirit-powered. As I see it in the Bible, God’s method of church growth and ministry is through the gospel, through the Word, and through the gifts of the Spirit.

I believe this, but I fall a million miles short of seeing that happen the way I think it can. I am on a huge learning curve and have been for many years. I want help on this. So I hope the community of people who read this blog will help me and each other through comments and prayers.

Knowing and walking with God means working with him. I don’t relate to God just so he’ll help me in “the work of the Lord.” I work for God because it’s part of how we walk with him, love him, and know him.

I am enthralled that God is infinitely superior to me in every imaginable way. I am interested in any person who is superior to me in any way, even two steps beyond me. Well, God is infinitely superior to me and in every way! How could I not be interested in him? God is fascinating. He is interesting, creative, strong, intense, passionate, good.

Think about that last adjective. God is good; Jesus said God alone is good. I want to be as near as I can to any good person, and God is perfect goodness, infinite goodness. As Psalm 73:28 says, “It is good to be near God.”

In summary, this blog on Knowing God and His Ways will regularly engage these subjects:

  • Practicing God’s presence
  • Walking with and working with the Holy Spirit
  • Prayer and faith
  • Walking with God experientially like you relate to a person
  • Understanding what the Bible reveals about God
  • God’s infinite superiority

This post is approaching 1,000 words, so it’s time to stop. Normally I plan to write 300 to 600 words.

For more information about this blog and my writing, see the About page.

Knowing God and his ways is the greatest adventure! I invite you to join me every week in the journey. I plan to post weekly on Mondays.

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I would like to give you an ebook as a way of saying thank you for subscribing to my blog on knowing God and his ways. The ebook is titled The Ultimate Experience: Why Knowing God Tops Everything.

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