For part 3 of our devotional series on knowing God, we’re gonna look into WHAT does it mean to know God. In previous posts, we’ve looked into two questions on knowing God:
So, without further ado, let’s get into WHAT knowing God means for us as Seventh-Day Adventist Christian teens and our 21st century lives.
Psalm 42:1-2 gives us an idea on what it means to know God:
As the deer pants for the water brooks,
So pants my soul for You, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
That word “pants” comes from the Hebrew word `arag (עָרַג); it means “to long for:—cry, pant.” Y’know, when I saw that word “cry” in the definition for `arag (עָרַג), I couldn’t help but sense the Holy Spirit reminding me of another Psalm David wrote some chapters later! It’s Psalm 84:2–
My soul longs, yes, even faints
For the courts of the Lord;
My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
That phrase “cry out” means “to shout for joy” in the original Hebrew. So, how do all these Hebrew word definitions apply to what knowing God means? And how does it all apply to us as Adventist youth in our modern lives?
Knowing God means more than just having an intellectual understanding of His existence. Knowing God isn’t just about paying attention to the pastor’s sermons every Sabbath at church. Knowing God means more than paying attention in Sabbath School and always doing the Sabbath School lesson. Knowing God isn’t even mindlessly reading the Bible every day. What knowing God REALLY, TRULY means is having a deep longing for Him; a thirsting desire to joyfully shout for more and still more of God and a personal knowledge of His character. It means to have a heart that deeply hungers and thirsts after righteousness (Matthew 5:4).
That’s what knowing God means. To long for Him; to cry for more of His love and His will in the personal life.
Is that your longing, dear reader? To know God more and more until every atom of self is consumed by “the light of His glory and grace”? To cry out for more and more of a deeper and broader knowledge of His will? To thirst for greater and richer experiences with Him?
Or is your longing attached to this world and its pleasures, its ambitions, its entertainments, and its fashions?
I’d like to seriously ask you, dear reader, what type of knowledge is your heart crying out for? Are you crying out for a knowledge of God like David in Psalm 84:2? Or are you crying out for a worldly knowledge of some sort (like education, money, entertainment, pleasure, fashion, selfish ambition, etc.)?
Friend, if you sense the Holy Spirit convicting you today that your deepest heart longings aren’t about gaining a richer personal knowledge of God and His will; that your heart and mind aren’t crying out for God but for whatever the world is offering–whether it be entertainment, ambition, pleasure, or whatever–I appeal to you to pray the following prayer:
I’d like to conclude this post with a very important verse that you may meditate on along with the above prayer:
“Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.” —(Colossians 3:2)
May each of us today set our minds and hearts on gaining a deeper, personal knowledge of God; to continually cry out for more and more of God and His will for each of our lives and not on this world. Amen! Marantha!
Stay tuned for part 4 of this devotional series, where we’ll dig into WHEN we should know God! [UPDATE: You can now view part 4 HERE]