Christ? Didn’t you meet Him on the
Damascus Road? Haven’t you been
serving Him for years?”
Yes, but it’s one thing to meet someone
and another to develop an intimate
knowledge and an abiding friendship
with him.
In simple terms, getting to know God
is no different than getting to know
another person. When spending time
with a friend, we talk to them and
listen to them, learning each other’s
stories. We become better acquainted.
By spending more time together, our
relationship grows. Our knowledge
of the other deepens, and we grow in
our mutual love and concern. A few
of these friends become our dearest,
best, and closest friends. Even then, we
can’t take the relationship for granted.
If time passes without communication
and fellowship, we drift apart.
Getting to know God is the same. We
get to know Him better by spending
time with Him, conversing, talking with
Him in prayer, and listening to Him
through His Word. When we neglect
our fellowship with God, the spiritual
quality of our lives begins to dim.
If we aren’t careful, we become “trained”
Christians, people who have learned to
do the things others expect outwardly.
But while maintaining those outward
traditions, we may be God-starved
inwardly. This even happened to the
Christians in Ephesus who, despite
their outstanding Christian character,
drifted from their first love (Revelation
2:4).
Here is the key: We can only worship
someone we love, and we can only
love someone we know. Worship
fundamentally begins in the heart when
we come to know God. If we really know
Him as He wants to be known, we will
love Him. Trying to manufacture that
from the outside in doesn’t work.
That isn’t something you do once a
week on Sunday morning. It’s a matter
of becoming a walking doxology, as it
were, all the time, doing everything for
His glory.
“
Serious problems
develop when we
don’t grow in the
knowledge of God.”
Suppose the only time you
communicated with your husband or
wife was once a week, when, on Sunday
morning, you gave your spouse a box
of chocolates. Even if the box were
wrapped in gold foil and contained the
finest Belgian candies, it wouldn’t be
nearly enough to maintain a meaningful
relationship. If your entire relationship
with your loved one consisted in a box
of chocolates every seventh day, the
marriage would wither.
That’s what some people do with God.
We give Him a box of chocolates or a
bouquet of flowers once a week, so
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