Forgetting the Dung - J.I. Packer, in Knowing God

Excerpt from the devotion book: How Great Is Our God 

Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. (Phil 3:7)

Not many of us, I think, would ever naturally say that we have known God. The words imply a definiteness and matter-of factness of experience to which most of us, if we are honest have to admit that we are still strangers. We claim, perhaps, to have a testimony, and can rattle off our conversion story with the best of them; we say that we know God – this, after all, is what evangelicals are expected to say, but would it occur to us to say, without hesitation, and with reference to particular events in our personal  history, that we have known God? I doubt it, for I suspect that with most of us our experience of God has never become so vivid as that.

Nor, I think, would many of us ever naturally say that in the light of the knowledge of God, which we have come to enjoy, past disappointments and present heartbreaks (as the world counts heartbreaks) don’t matter. For the plain fact is that the most of us they do matter.

But those who really know God never brood on might-have-beens; they never think of the things they have missed, only of that they have gained. “What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ,” wrote Paul. “I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may know win Christ…. That I may know Him” (Philippians 3:7-10) When Paul says he counts the things he lost as “dung” he means not merely that he does not live with them constantly in his mind; what normal person spends his time nostalgically dreaming of manure? Yet, this, in effect, is what many of us do. It shows how little we have in the way of true knowledge of God.

The Heart of True Understanding

Excerpt from HOW GREAT IS OUR GOD

Timeless Daily Readiness on the Nature of God

 The  Heart of True Understanding  By Sinclair Fergusson, in A Heart For God

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight" (Proverbs 9:10

What is the most important thing in the world to every Christian? It is to grow in the knowledge of God.

The Knowledge of God is the heart of Salvation and of all true spiritual experience. Knowing Him is what we were created for. It will occupy us throughout all eternity. In the Scriptures, it is almost equivalent to Salvation. Jesus said that eternal life, or Salvation means knowledge of God: “and this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (John 17:3) To be a Christian is not a mindless experience, but involves knowledge and understanding. It means a personal relationship and personal acquaintance with the Lord.

Behind what Jesus says in John’s gospel lies the promise that God gave centuries before in the prophecy of the new covenant: “I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord” (Jeremiah 24:7) The fulfillment of that prophecy would mean, Jeremiah added, “No longer shall each one teach his neighbour and each his brother saying, “know  the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest” (31-34.) Isaiah  similarly tells us that this knowledge of God is what would mark the reign of the promised Messiah, Jesus Christ: “The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:9)  What a vision! Yet it summarizes what Scriptures tells us Christ came to do: to bring us the knowledge of God.

Such knowledge of God is really the heart of all true understanding of the Christian life. A man or woman may be a Christian and remain ignorant of many things. But we cannot be Christians and remain ignorant of God. In the Final analysis, says the wise man in Proverbs, “knowledge of the Holy One is understanding” (9-10)

FACE TO FACE WITH GOD

Excerpt from the devotion book: How Great Is Our God 

Sinclair Ferguson, in A Heart for God 

Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God (Exodus 3:6)

We cannot know ourselves unless we see ourselves as we are in the presence of God. Nor can we come to know God without viewing ourselves in a new light. The presence of God, therefore, does two things: it makes us conscious of who He is, and it makes us aware of who we are in His glorious presence.

As Moses stood in the presence of God who is a consuming fire, but found that he was not consumed, he must have felt as though every last element of superficiality was being stripped from his being. In that context, there could be no pretense, nor in the desert was there anywhere to hide. He was alone, with God, awed by his presence as the One who called Himself “I Am” Exodus 3:14)

What does it really mean to stand in the presence of God? In the Old Testament, to be “in the presence of God” often translates a Hebrew expression meaning “before the face of God” It conveys the idea of coming face to face with Him. More than that, because no man can see God’s face and live (as Moses learned in Exodus 33:20) being in the presence of God may carry the sense of standing before One who is able to scrutinize us, who can see all our actions and reactions, even though we can never know or understand Him. For God dwells in unapproachable light.  What could be more awesome than to stand in the presence of God – and live? There was nothing in the world more awesome that Moses could have done than to stand before the mystery of God’s being and the majesty of His glory, yet not die.

One of our greatest needs in coming to know God in our day is to recover a sense of what it really means to stand in the presence of God.