True or false?

“Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can never hurt you.”

Definitely false. Words can and do often hurt us.

Our bodies and minds are more tied together than the saying implies. Ever gotten a stomachache over words said to you, or words said by you? I have.

But what about what we believe? Can beliefs hurt us, too?

Definitely.

For example: You notice a poisonous snake curled up only a foot away from your own feet. But if the snake is in a glass enclosure because you’re at the zoo, you’re not afraid. Your body doesn’t react. You accurately believe you’re safe.

But if you see the same snake while on a hike in the woods? Your body will react differently. It believes you’re in danger, and appropriately so.

Our beliefs about our safety or danger affects our feelings and our actions.

So what about our beliefs about God? Do they affect our feelings of danger or safety? And our actions?

Think about your own feelings toward God. Some feel anger toward God. Many feel afraid. Or shamed. Or simply disinterested. Others feel at peace.

How we feel about God is based on our beliefs about God.

If we imagine God as a stalker waiting to catch us in one wrong move then bang!, or if we think God doesn’t care anything about us or our lives, we’re more likely to avoid God.

Who wants a relationship with a God like that?

But if we believe God to be full of love and goodness and filling us with the same, we’re more likely to pursue God and treat others with love and goodness as well.

So how do we know which beliefs are accurate?

That’s our journey.

We each have to search for the truth about God.

How can we find the truth? We stay open to learning more. We listen to how God communicates with us and in us. We read the Bible about God. We encounter God in creation. We see God in others. We pay attention to others’ experiences with God.  

I believe God encourages mindfulness, not ignorance.

Just as we dodge literal sticks and stones, we stay mindful to dodge untrue words and beliefs about God as well—they’re also painful.

We’ll still experience pain in this life. There is no escaping that. 

But by eliminating as many untrue beliefs as we can, we’ll also eliminate a few unnecessary hurts.

Seek the truth. As Jesus said, truth will set us free.

We can’t assume we’ve arrived at full knowledge about God.

We still have growing to do.

Share your thoughts in the comments.

sharing at these linkups

Does God Want Us to Know Him?

What does it mean to know God?

It’s complex. Because God is complex.

All we can really know about God is what he chooses to reveal. It’s not as if we can sneak up on God and say, “Caught you!” He sees us peeking around the corner first.

But we don’t have to sneak.

God reveals himself to us because he created us to know him. He won’t leave us empty-headed about him.

And from what I’ve seen him reveal so far? He’s all good. He wants to be seen.

He wants to be known. 

Knowing God Is Having Life

Still, what does it mean to “know God”?

Knowing God is eternal life, per J. I. Packer in Chapter 3 of his classic book, Knowing God.

Jesus said this to God:

“And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3).

But what exactly does that mean?

1. Knowing God is personal.

Just like knowing a person is, well, personal, knowing God is personal. It is you relating to God, and God relating to you.

It’s not just knowing about God. That is theology. That’s like me knowing the President. I can study him and know about him. But I don’t have a relationship with the President.

Knowing God goes beyond the study of theology. It’s knowing the being, and being known by him.

It’s a two-way connection, not just one-way. 

“You can have all the right notions in your head without ever tasting in your heart the realities to which they refer; and a simple Bible-reader and sermon-hearer who is full of the Holy Ghost will develop a far deeper acquaintance with his God and Savior than more learned men who are content with being theologically correct.”
– J. I. Packer

2. Knowing God requires involvement.

Knowing God is more than holding facts in our head. Yes, knowing him requires our mind, but it goes beyond that, and also includes our will and our emotions.

Packer says, “To get to know another person, you have to commit yourself to his company and interests, and be ready to identify yourself with his concerns.”

A meal may look good, but until we sit down and eat it, we’ll never really know.

The same with God. Until we actually do life with God, it’s all theory. 

Also, contrary to what some teach, knowing God is emotional. To know God is to be emotionally involved with the things he’s emotionally involved with. If we attempt to think his thoughts and to act in his ways, we should also feel what he feels. (Even though we’re terribly limited in each of these.)

“. . . we must not lose sight of the fact that knowing God is an emotional relationship, as well as an intellectual and volitional one, and could not indeed be a deep relation between persons were it not so.”
– J. I. Packer

3. Knowing God is a matter of grace.

It’s only a gift of grace that we can know God at all. Grace starts first with God, not us. He initiates everything, including knowledge.

Because God knows us first, better than we know ourselves and long before we know him, he knows what we need. And he knows what we need to know. And gives it to us.

What we need to know—and see—is that God loves us. We are seen. We are understood. We are treasured.

“We do not make friends with God; God makes friends with us, bringing us to know Him by making His love known to us.”
– J. I. Packer

While it’s important for us to know God, of first importance is that God knows us.

Being known by God makes it possible for us to know God.

Knowing God is grace.

Knowing God is life.

[These thoughts are an updated post from Chapter 3 of Knowing God, “Knowing and Being Known.” I benefited from it. But I disagree with Packer in Chapter 4, “The Only True God,” for his refusal of any imagery to remind us of God.]

How do you know when you really know someone? What does it mean to you to know God versus knowing about God? Please share in the comments.

• Previous chapters of Knowing God: 
  Chapters 1 and 2, “The Study of God” and “The People Who Know Their God”
  “Why Do You Want to Know God?”
• Next chapters of Knowing God: 
  Chapters 5 and 6, “God Incarnate” and“He Shall Testify”
  “You Know God and Jesus. But What About the Holy Spirit?”

We often spot family members because they look alike.

What about the members in God’s family? Do we look alike? Do we mirror His image?

When I saw the mean comment on Sunday afternoon, five deep, I cringed. Human to human, we can bring out the worst in each other.

But then I saw something elsewhere on Sunday. A photo. And I changed my mind.

Read the rest here.

I’m writing today at Do Not Depart. Will you join me there to see if you have the family resemblance?

Do you wish your partner could read your mind?

Do you really want someone to know everything about you?

God knows. Does that make you uncomfortable?

Let’s look at the Hebrew word “yada” (to know) to discover why being known by God is actually a good thing, and why knowing God brings freedom, not fear.

Read it all here.

* * *

I’m writing today at Do Not Depart for our #OTHebrewWords series.

Will you join me there—yada, yada, yada?

Do you want to tell others about God?

It might depend on what you think about God.

Read it here, “Is Your God Worth Sharing?”

* * *

This month at Do Not Depart we’re talking about why theology (the study of God) matters. Will you join me there?

This week finishes our Knowing God book discussion with the group at Tim Challies. Overall, I highly recommend this classic (originally published in 1973) because author J. I. Packer reaches his aim in encouraging readers to not only know more about God, but also to know God.

“So many in our day seem to have been distracted from what was, is, and always will be the true priority for every human being—that is, learning to know God in Christ. . . .

If this book moves any of its readers to identify more closely with the psalmist at this point [Psalm 27:8], it will not have been written in vain.”

However, before we enjoy the good parts of the final chapter 22, “The Adequacy of God,” I have a small conflict with Packer (again) in the next to last chapter 21, “These Inward Trials.” It’s a recurrence of the issue I had with Packer earlier, “Does God toy with us in his wisdom?” from chapters 9 and 10.

First, our points of agreement. 

1. Packer says it’s worse to promise someone they’ll have no problems once they become a Christian than to warn them they’ll have too many. Agreed. We don’t want to overly glamorize the Christian life, denying that physical, emotional, and spiritual struggles continue as long as we’re here in the flesh.

“Such suggestions [the impression that normal Christian living is a perfect bed of roses, a state of affairs in which everything in the garden is lovely all the time, and problems no longer exist] are mischievous because they are false.”

2. Second, we agree that it’s wrong to pile on guilt when new believers do have troubles even after being saved. It’s cruel to equate their struggles with “‘defeat’, as a a relapse caused by failure to maintain ‘consecration’ and ‘faith.’”

But where I disagree with Packer is the source of our struggles.

While yes, God does discipline those he loves (Hebrews 12:6), just as all responsible parents discipline their children to help them grow up, Packer still doesn’t convince me that God intentionally “fills our lives with troubles and perplexities of one sort and another [to] ensure that we shall learn to hold Him fast.”

Jesus promised us each day has enough trouble of its own (Matthew 6:34), making no reference that God will need to intentionally pile it on even heavier just to make us crumble quicker.

Jesus also said that if we, as human parents, won’t give our children a snake if they ask for a fish (Luke 11:11-13), how much less will God do so.

So while I agree with Packer that God wants us to “learn thankfully to lean on Him,” I disagree that God wants us to “feel that our way through life is rough and perplexing” just so we’ll see him as our strong rock.

I know he’s my refuge without having to believe he’s the one chasing me into it.

To close, here are some beautiful truths from Packer from the final chapter that we can all agree with.

“In saving us, God went to the limit. What more could He have given for us? We cannot know what Calvary cost the Father, any more than we can know what Jesus felt as He tasted the penalty due to our sins.”

* ~ * ~ *

“Have you been holding back from a risky, costly course to which you know in your heart God has called you? Hold back no longer. Your God is faithful to you, and adequate for you. You will never need more than He can supply, and what He supplies, both materially and spiritually, will always be enough for the present.”

* ~ * ~ *

“The idea of Christ condemning us is absurd. He died to save us from condemnation, by bearing the penalty of our sins as our substitute.”

* ~ * ~ *

“Your faith will not fail while God sustains it; you are not strong enough to fall away while God is resolved to hold you.”

* * *

Your thoughts?

All chapters:

• Why do you want to know God? (chapters 1-2)
• What does it mean to know God? (chapters 3-4)
• You know God & Jesus. But the Holy Spirit? (chapters 5-6)
• Is reading the Bible worth it? (chapters 7-8)
• Does God toy with us in his wisdom? (chapters 9-10)
• Why doesn’t God give up on us? (chapters 11-12)
• When we don’t believe in grace (chapters 13-14)
• Is God mad at you? (chapters 15-16)
• Praise God for his jealousy? (chapters 17-18)
• What does God wants from us? (chapters 19-20)
• True priority of our day – To know God (chapters 21-20)

We often ask ourselves:

• What does God want me to do?
• Which way is best?
• Which choice should I make?

Discerning God’s will is not always easy.

First, we have to believe God does have plans for us. Then, we have to believe we can find out what they are.

But as J. I. Packer points out in Knowing God, even when we believe the former, that God does want to guide us, we often have trouble believing the latter, that we’re capable of receiving the message.

Why? Packer gives 6 reasons why we may miss hearing from God. I’m flipping them onto their positive side for . . .

 6 ways we can hear from God:

1. Think it through
   “God made us thinking beings, and He guides our minds as in His presence we think things out.”
2. Think ahead
   “Weigh the long-term consequences of alternative courses of action. ‘Think ahead’ is part of the divine rule of life no less than of the human rule of the road.”
3. Listen to advice
   “There are always people who know the Bible, human nature, and our own gifts and limitations, better than we do, and even if we cannot finally accept their advice, nothing but good will come to us from carefully weighing what they say.”
4. Question yourself
   “We need to ask ourselves why we ‘feel’ a particular course to be right, and make ourselves give reasons. . . . We also need to keep praying, ‘Search me, O God, and know my heart.”
5. Use caution with others
   “Outstanding men are not, indeed, necessarily wrong, but they are not necessarily right, either! They, and their views, must be respected, but may not be idolised.”
6. Be willing to wait
   “God is not in such a hurry as we are, and it is not His way to give more light on the future than we need for action in the present, or to guide us more than one step at a time. When in doubt, do nothing, but continue to wait on God. When action is needed, light will come.”

But even if we do these things, will we always know the exact decisions to make? Of course not.

I agree with Elisabeth Ellliot,

“If you are thinking that you know the will of God for your life and you are anxious to do that, you are probably in for a very rude awakening because nobody knows the will of God for his entire life.”

But along with Packer, I do believe that even though we won’t hear every little answer (go right, turn left), God does bring us out of darkness into light despite ourselves.

And even when we get off track (which we all do), we can trust that God will not only get us back on course, but that he will take our mess-ups and weave them into a greater plan.

So ultimately, what does God want from us?

Not to frantically think we have to find the correct answer to everything, or to have total assurance for every decision we make.

But to believe that he has it all under control.

Trust him for whatever comes.

That’s what he wants. Trust him.

“Whatever happens, whatever mistakes we may make, we shall come safe home.

Slipping and strayings there will be, no doubt, but the everlasting arms are beneath us; we shall be caught, rescued, restored. This is God’s promise; this is how good He is.”

* * *

Do you have trouble making decisions? What helps you finally decide? Please share in the comments.

This is Week 10 of 11 of Knowing God together with Tim Challies.

Previous chapters:

• Why do you want to know God? (chapters 1-2)
• What does it mean to know God? (chapters 3-4)
• You know God & Jesus. But the Holy Spirit? (chapters 5-6)
• Is reading the Bible worth it? (chapters 7-8)
• Does God toy with us in his wisdom? (chapters 9-10)
• Why doesn’t God give up on us? (chapters 11-12)
• When we don’t believe in grace (chapters 13-14)
• Is God mad at you? (chapters 15-16)
• Praise God for his jealousy? (chapters 17-18)

Next (and LAST) week:

• Chapter 21 and 22, “These Inward Trials” and “The Adequacy of God”

“He is jealous for me
Loves like a hurricane, and I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy”

– “How He Loves” by David Crowder Band

Have you been accused of jealousy? Or accused someone else of it?

Is jealousy a good or bad trait?

In humans, I think of it negatively. But we’re to praise it in God?

The Bible is full with statements about God’s jealousy (including Numbers 25:11, Joshua 24:19, Zephaniah 1:18, Psalm 78:58). J. I. Packer hits it hard in chapter 17, “The Jealous God,” of Knowing God.

“How can jealousy be a virtue in God when it is a vice in men? God’s perfections are matter for praise; but how can we praise God for being jealous?”

Here’s how we praise God for his jealousy, according to Packer.

1. Statements about God’s jealousy are anthropomorphisms.

It’s language in terms of men, for our own understanding. But these anthropomorphisms aren’t limited by men.

“The human qualities which show the corrupting effect of sin have no counterpart in God. . . . God’s jealousy is not a compound of frustration, envy, and spite, as human jealousy so often is, but appears instead as a (literally) praiseworthy zeal to preserve something supremely precious.”

2.  There are two kinds of jealousy among men, but only one is bad.

We’re familiar with the bad kind, hating someone for having something we want.

But Packer suggests there is a good jealousy—“zeal to protect a love-relationship, or to avenge it when broken.” He says that the jealousy we feel in a husband-wife relationship brings a “proper zeal to keep it intact.”

He says this is the kind of jealousy that God has for his people, a covenant love. It carries with it “a demand for unqualified love and loyalty.”

Spiritual adultery on our part provokes jealousy on God’s part.

Packer concludes that this jealousy drives us to be more zealous for God.

• We respond to God’s love for us by loving him in return.
• His concern for us leads to our concern for him.
• His jealousy for us provokes us to keep him as our one thing, too.

* * *

What do you think about God being jealous? Please share in the comments.

This is Week 9 of reading Knowing God together with Tim Challies.

Previous chapters:

• Why do you want to know God? (chapters 1-2)
• What does it mean to know God? (chapters 3-4)
• You know God & Jesus. But the Holy Spirit? (chapters 5-6)
• Is reading the Bible worth it? (chapters 7-8)
• Does God toy with us in his wisdom? (chapters 9-10)
• Why doesn’t God give up on us? (chapters 11-12)
• When we don’t believe in grace (chapters 13-14)
• Is God mad at you? (chapters 15-16)

Next week:

• Chapter 19 and 20, “Sons of God” and “Thou Our Guide”

I’m uncomfortable around angry people. And more so if they’re mad at me.

I don’t really like feeling angry myself. While it is empowering, it leaves a bad aftertaste.

So thinking about God being angry makes me uncomfortable, too.

I was most uncomfortable this week with our reading assignment in J. I. Packer’s Knowing God. It’s chapter 15, “The Wrath of God.” (Can we substitute a more modern word for “wrath”? I’m going to use “anger” here.)

Packer says he knows we play it down. We don’t like talking about God’s anger for these reasons:

1. We think anger isn’t God-like.

Yes, I admit it. I don’t want to equate God’s anger with how I see man’s anger: bad tempers; out of control behavior; violent mood swings. I agree with how James speaks of anger: “The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:20). (For more on this, check out Brant Hansen’s book, Unoffendable.)

But Packer reminds us there is a difference between God’s anger and our anger. Ours is often self-indulgent, whereas God’s is always a reaction to evil.

2. We wonder if God’s anger is cruel.

We know God is good. But don’t his judgments sometimes come across as too harsh?

Packer says no. He says God is always fair. Agreed.

(Except when God isn’t fair. It doesn’t seem fair to me that I get forgiveness for every sin I’ve ever committed or will commit just because Jesus paid the price instead. Grace goes beyond fair.)

But my bigger disagreement with Packer is here. Packer says that God’s anger isn’t cruel because we choose it for ourselves.

Well, I wouldn’t put it quite that way. If it were my choice, I’d always choose less pain and more pleasure as my consequence. Let’s all eat Krispy Kreme donuts and lose weight, not gain it.

So while I understand what Packer is alluding to (such as, if we choose to play with fire, we’ll get burned as a consequence), I think he’s underestimating our foolishness.

Our decision-making skills aren’t as refined as they need to be. We don’t always think the consequence will apply to me, or at least not until a very long time from now. (No need to start saving for retirement now, right? It’s so far down the road.)

So with all respect to Mr. Packer, I can’t agree with his statement:

“The essence of God’s action in wrath is to give men what they choose, in all its implications: nothing more, and equally nothing less.”

But where we do agree is here:

“Between us sinners and the thunder-clouds of divine wrath stands the cross of the Lord Jesus. If we are Christ’s through faith, then we are justified through His cross, and the wrath will never touch us, neither here nor hereafter.”

So is God mad at us? All I know for sure is this: Not if we’re his.

However God’s anger works or doesn’t work, it’s no longer directed at me. He sees me differently now; he sees me through the eyes of Jesus. His anger has turned away. Now he comforts me instead. (Thanks, memory verse, Isaiah 12:1).

I’m not uncomfortable with that at all.

* * *

What do you think? (I won’t get angry if you disagree with me—I know I still have much to learn.)

We’re on Week 8 of reading Knowing God together with Tim Challies.

Previous chapters:

• Why do you want to know God? (chapters 1-2)
• What does it mean to know God? (chapters 3-4)
• You know God & Jesus. But the Holy Spirit? (chapters 5-6)
• Is reading the Bible worth it? (chapters 7-8)
• Does God toy with us in his wisdom? (chapters 9-10)
• Why doesn’t God give up on us? (chapters 11-12)
• When we don’t believe in grace (chapters 13-14)

Next week:

• Chapter 17 and 18, “The Jealous God” and “The Heart of the Gospel”

I went to church for years and never understood it. Never heard much about it. And surely never believed much in it.

Grace. 

I finally discovered it, and wow! Now I can’t hear enough about grace and the freedom it brings me.

But why are there many in our churches who still don’t believe in grace?

“The thought means nothing to them; it does not touch their experience at all. Talk to them about the church’s heating, or last year’s accounts, and they are with you at once; but speak to them about the realities to which the word ‘grace’ points, and their attitude is one of deferential blankness. . . .

They do not accuse you of talking nonsense, but . . . the longer they have lived without it the surer they are that at their stage of life they do not really need it.”
– J. I. Packer

In chapter 13, “The Grace of God,” in Knowing God, J. I. Packer suggests these four reasons why many can’t grasp grace.

4 reasons we don’t appreciate grace:

1. We think we’re good enough without it.

Instead of us being made in the image of God, we tend to create God in the image of us. And we think highly of ourselves. We’re pretty good people, yes?

“Modern man, conscious of his tremendous scientific achievements in recent years, naturally inclines to a high opinion of himself. He views material wealth as in any case more important than moral character.”

2. We see no need for it.

We’d rather put off any thoughts of punishment. Ignore evil as much as possible. So we assume God feels like that, too. With no worldview of punishment, who needs grace to counter it?

3. We believe we can talk our way out of trouble.

Who can say no to us? Aren’t we capable of repairing our own relationships—even with God? We have the power within ourselves, right?

“. . . by putting God in a position where He cannot say ‘no’ any more. Ancient pagans thought to do this by multiplying gifts and sacrifices; modern pagans seek to do it by churchmanship and morality.”

4. We think God is obligated to love us anyway.

To quote a French freethinker, “God will forgive—that’s his job.” We feel he is bound to show us pity because of who he is.

But, but, but . . .

As Packer points out, we aren’t as good as we think we are.

We are guilty, unclean. So we do need grace to cover our otherwise deserved punishment. God is the one with the power, not us, to mend our broken relationship with him. We are dependent upon him for mercy—he doesn’t owe it to us—but by his own choice and goodness, he gives it to us.

“Justification is the truly dramatic transition from the status of a condemned criminal awaiting a terrible sentence to that of an heir awaiting a fabulous inheritance.”

Thank God for his grace.
Believe it.
Receive it.

Be changed by it.

“For love awakens love in return.”

* * *

Are you early or late to grace? I’m late, but better late than never! Please share in the comments.

Previous chapters:

• Why do you want to know God? (chapters 1-2)
• What does it mean to know God? (chapters 3-4)
• You know God & Jesus. But the Holy Spirit? (chapters 5-6)
• Is reading the Bible worth it? (chapters 7-8)
• Does God toy with us in his wisdom? (chapters 9-10)
• Why doesn’t God give up on us? (chapters 11-12)

Next week:

• Chapter 15 and 16, “The Wrath of God” and “Goodness and Severity”