Knowing God: A Lifelong Journey

Today's Reading

Read Philippians 3:7-14: "But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ... Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own."

Then read Hosea 6:3: "Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth."

Reflection

We have spent fourteen days exploring who God is — His incomprehensibility, His unchangeableness, His majesty, His fatherly love, His grace, His wrath, His justice, His goodness, His wisdom, His jealousy, and His sufficiency. But Packer's deepest insight in Knowing God comes not in any of these individual chapters but in the book's opening and closing, where he addresses the nature of the knowing itself.

"What matters supremely," Packer writes, "is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it — the fact that He knows me. I am graven on the palms of His hands." This is a profound reversal. We tend to think of knowing God as our project — something we achieve through study, prayer, and spiritual disciplines. Packer insists that the deeper reality is that God knows us. Our knowledge of Him is a response to His prior, sustained, unshakeable knowledge of us.

"All my knowledge of Him depends on His sustained initiative in knowing me," Packer continues. "I know Him because He first knew me, and He continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, one who loves me; and there is no moment when His eye is off me, or His attention distracted from me." This is both humbling and profoundly comforting. Your relationship with God does not depend on the quality of your devotional life. It depends on the faithfulness of His attention.

Paul embodies this in Philippians 3. He was a man of extraordinary spiritual attainment — apostle, church planter, theologian, miracle worker. Yet at the end of his life, he is still pressing forward: "Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own." The greatest apostle considered himself a learner to the last. And his motivation was not duty but desire: "the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord."

Hosea 6:3 captures the same longing: "Let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is sure as the dawn." Knowing God is not a destination you arrive at. It is a journey whose every step reveals new wonders, like a sunrise that keeps growing brighter.

Going Deeper

As this plan concludes, Packer leaves us with a question that is also an invitation: do you know God? Not do you know about Him — but do you know Him? Has the God you have studied these fourteen days become the God you trust, love, speak to, lean on, and stake your life upon? If so, the journey is just beginning. If not, it can begin today. The God who knows you is inviting you to know Him — and that knowledge is eternal life.