Devotionals: Knowing God Archives

Knowing the Lord Personally

By Andrew YoungJune 23, 2017Devotionals: Knowing God

“…the purpose of all knowledge of doctrine is to bring us to a knowledge of the person of Christ.” Bible Reading: Philippians 3:8-11 This past week while in Singapore, I stayed with close friends after speaking at a church camp in Malaysia. On the night I arrived at their apartment, the husband shared a devotional reading – as was his custom – at the meal table. The moment I saw the book he was about to read from, I hazarded a guess what passage he was going to select. And I was right! The book in question, The Unsearchable Riches […]

Beyond Mere Thinking

By Andrew YoungJune 25, 2017Devotionals: Knowing God

“I have been enabled to go beyond mere thinking and to become an intimate with Christ himself.” Bible Reading: Numbers 12:1-8 Early in my reading in the field of Christian spirituality, I came across the candid testimony of a self-attested evangelical scholar regarding his personal spiritual struggles. It provides a second example of what can be thought of as a widespread thirst among Christians today to know God better. While many question the evangelical orthodoxy of this particular scholar, his testimony is, in my opinion, worth sharing. It puts into words a very common experience and complaint. With that in […]

Why We Exist

By Andrew YoungJune 26, 2017Devotionals: Knowing God

“…the whole end and purpose of man’s existence was that he should have communion with God.” Bible Reading: Psalm 42:1-11 Before looking more closely at what it actually means to “know God,” it is worth considering a further testimony to the weakness of modern Christianity in this respect. James I. Packer, one of the most highly respected evangelical theologians of the twentieth century, had this to say in his book A Quest for Godliness: the Puritan Vision of the Christian Life. Modern Christian books and magazines contain much about Christian doctrine, Christian standards, problems of Christian conduct, techniques of Christian […]

Our Highest Good

By Andrew YoungJune 27, 2017Devotionals: Knowing God

“God, and God alone, is man’s highest good.” H. Bavinck Bible Reading: Genesis 1:26-30 So, there seems to be a desire among some Christians at least for a deeper knowledge of God and experience of communion with him. How do we go about getting that? At the outset, I must say that I don’t see myself as a master guide in this field. There is so much more to lived intimacy with God that I want (and need) to know and experience. So I write not as an expert, but as a learner – a fellow-traveller, to use a commonly […]

Created for God

By Andrew YoungJune 28, 2017Devotionals: Knowing God

“God created man… in order that he should know God his Creator aright…” H. Bavinck Bible Reading: Revelation 21:1-3; 22:1-5 In our last devotional, we traced the way we as humans seek out something higher in life than what we can see and touch to the way God has made us. He has made us like himself, and we can never be fully satisfied until we discover him and come to know and live with him. Herman Bavinck, whom I referred to in the last article, points to this in the following words: The Bible begins with the account that […]

No Abstract Being

By Andrew YoungJune 29, 2017Devotionals: Knowing God

“The prophets and apostles… did not sit and philosophise about God in abstracted concepts.” H. Bavinck Bible Reading: Romans 1:18-23 Our last devotional ended abruptly with a quotation from Herman Bavinck describing what it meant for saints in the Old and New Testaments to walk with God. That description is so important to our study of the theme of knowing God that we must return to it. Let me print it again for you: The prophets and apostles, and the saints generally who appear before us in the Old and New Testament and later in the church of Christ did […]

“Awake… O Lord”

By Andrew YoungJune 30, 2017Devotionals: Knowing God

“Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord?” (Psalm 44:23) Bible Reading: Psalm 44:1-26 We have been considering in the last two devotionals how real and personal God was to both Old and New Testament Bible characters. He wasn’t an abstract concept to them, but an intensely real and living being – more real to them than the visible world in which they lived. Furthermore, he was deeply involved in the daily circumstances of their lives. This idea was highlighted in another of the evening devotional readings I recently enjoyed with my friends in Singapore. On this particular night, my host […]

Personal, Practical Dealings

By Andrew YoungJuly 1, 2017Devotionals: Knowing God

“Knowing God is a matter of personal dealing, as is all direct acquaintance with personal beings.” J.I. Packer Bible Reading: 1 John 2:3-8 Few books dealing with what it means to know God have been as helpful to Christians as J.I. Packer’s Knowing God. In its opening pages, Packer stresses that knowing God is not the same as knowing about him. This is how he describes what it means to know God: [Knowing God] is a matter of personal dealing, as is all direct acquaintance with personal beings. Knowing God is more than knowing about him; it is a matter […]

More than Just the Mind

By Andrew YoungJuly 2, 2017Devotionals: Knowing God

“[Knowing God] is a matter of personal involvement, in mind, will and feeling.” J.I. Packer Bible Reading: Psalm 73:25, 26 People like J.I. Packer who have thought deeply about what it means to know God stress that it is something that involves our whole person. It is not just our minds that are involved, but our affections (feelings) and will as well. Packer likens the relationship we have with God to that which friends have with each other. Friends, he says, commit themselves to one another, and to a deep interest in each other’s affairs. [Friends] have identified themselves with, […]

Communion with God

By Andrew YoungJuly 3, 2017Devotionals: Knowing God

“Our communion with God consists of his communication of himself unto us and our returns unto him…” John Owen Bible Reading: Psalm 84 The knowledge of God which we have been considering – a knowledge which is real, personal and practical – is sometimes spoken of as communion with God. That is to say, it is a knowledge in which there is a real communication of life, love and grace between God and ourselves. Often we think of communing with God as the same thing as prayer. “What have you been doing?” someone might ask when they interrupt us praying. […]