Knowing God and His Ways

 

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.

 

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.

Do you like this? Please share it with others.

 

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.