Knowing Jesus

May God give you more and more grace and peace
 as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord.
2 Peter 1:2 NLT

Recently I was listening to David Jeremiah and heard him say, “We can only worship a God we love. We can only love a God we know.” That truth reverberated through my heart.

This morning, as I pondered that, a distant memory of when I was in sixth grade and we girls sat on our school bus and sang with all our hearts the popular song of the moment, “To Know Him Is to Love Him.” As I recall I was thinking of Freddy! How fickle young girls can be!

I had no idea what Freddy thought of me in that moment.  However, if today I would sing that song about my Lord and Savior, the God through whom and for whom all things were made (Col.1:16), I would know what he thinks of me. The Bible is absolutely clear on that fact.  God has known and loved you and me before the creation of the world.  The Cross, Jesus’ death and resurrection, are proof of our God’s love for us. 

1 John 4:10 says, “This is real love – not that we loved God, but the he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.” And 1 John 4:19, “We love each other because he loved us first.”

When Dr. Jeremiah spoke of us knowing God, he was not referring to us knowing about God.  That is, knowing what the Bible says or others say about him. Much more than that, we are invited to really know God, for example, as a wife knows her husband, intimately and personally. What if I knew all the important facts about my husband, where he lives, what he likes, his personality and plans, but had never, or rarely, talked with him face to face, or shared my deepest fears and desires with him?  In the same way, that kind of long distance relationship is not what our Lord wants with us. 

You and I were created to have a close, personal relationship with God.  One of the benefits of that kind of personal relationship is enjoying real trust, love, peace and joy.  As amazing as it may sound, if we declare Christ as our God and surrender our lives to him, the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are waiting daily to reveal more of who they are and continually share their real, eternal love with us.

How do we know Jesus wants a loving relationship with us?  He died to make it possible. Let’s all be able to say, “I worship God because I love him.  I love him because I know him.”

Dear friends, be blessed as you commit to grow in your personal knowledge of God, and choose to receive God’s love and learn to love and worship him in return.  Let the Holy Spirit fill your heart with God’s love. (Rom.5:5) Then, rejoice and celebrate the great news of Easter that makes it all possible! Amen.

Mary Sumner ~April 4, 2023