The Believer's Greatest Need!

"As a deer pants for flowing streams, 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?" Psalms 42:1-2 (ESV)

What is the most important thing in the world to a believer? We could make a list that would stretch from sea to sea and probably would not be wrong. I have come to believe that the greatest need in the believers life is to grow in the knowledge of God (II Peter 3:18.) This idea is entwined within the gospel and all Christian experiences that God has provided for us. Knowing God and manifesting His glorious character and nature is why we were created.

As believers we are the children of God and as the children of God we are graced with a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. In my evening bible readings I am reading the Old Testament and I have recently read through Jeremiah. I came to the promise of the new covenant that God has promised to make with the descendants of Abraham and this line jumped at me and caused me to marvel. Quite frankly I am still marveling.

"I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord."

Jeremiah 24:7 (ESV)

Jesus Christ was sent by the Father to this earth in order to reveal to us knowledge about God. This knowledge is heart and soul of our Christianity. We have so many "ideas" about God. Unfortunately many of those ideas are not biblical. We are very adept of creating or imagining a "god" that we are comfortable with and can live with. True, biblical knowledge of God is absolutely necessary to grow beyond the infant state of believing to the mature adult state of believing.

It is so tragic that many people have been truly converted by the grace of God, some for years and years, yet are still infants in faith and understanding. It is one thing to come to realize that God is our "Abba Father", and our sins are washed away and another to desire, delight, treasure, and "pant" after God. This longing for God and this treasuring of God is not for what He has done or what He can do, it is for Him for who He is.

So Jeremiah tells the people of Judah; "Thus says the LORD: Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, nor let the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in he earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD." Jeremiah 9:23-24 (ESV)

The gospel is certainly key to knowing God. It initially opens the door to our redemption and into the family of God. The gospel is needed daily in the lives of believers as a reminder that we are God's children, our sins are forgiven, and that we have been given everything thing we need to live Godly in Christ Jesus. The gospel reminds us that we are fully accepted and loved by God because Christ's sacrifice fully satisfied the Father. The gospel reminds us that the power for this life that we know lives is the same power that raised Christ from the dead. Yes the gospel is essential for a believer. The gospel leads us to desire God and to desire deeper and more intimate knowledge of this God who sent His unique Son to satisfy His wrath that was meant for us.

How do we know God. How do we deepen our intimate knowledge of God's character and nature? Go to the Word of God. Then wait. Be patient and endure. How do you get wisdom and knowledge and understanding? The Holy Spirit produces wisdom, knowledge, and understanding through the Word of God. By the way, He does not do it by simply filling in the boxes on a reading chart, or my hit and miss reading. Occasionally you might "kick" up a nugget near the surface, but this understanding comes through long, hard, patient, arduous "back-breaking" labor of the study of the Word. The Holy Spirit uses the Word of God to mature us. We will never gain this knowledge of God unless we pant and pick up our tools, roll up our sleeve and go to work. It doesn't happen by mere desire, osmosis, prayer, or hoping for it to occur.

What say ye?