Do You Know God?

Donald Whitney, author of "How Can I Be Sure I'm a Christian?" gives some evidences from 1 John that help us discern if we know GOD. Here they are:

Do you share the intimacies of the Christian life with other believers? Do you love talking about the Bible and how to live as a Christian? Do you hunger to learn from other believers so you can grow in grace and get closer to Christ and live more in obeidence to Him? See 1 John 1:6-7

Do you have a deep awareness of your sin against the word and love of God? Are you aware of your sin daily? Does this grieve you, not because you will be disciplined but because you have disappointed your Father in heaven? See 1 John 1:8,10.

Do you live in conscious obedience to the word of God? Do you seek out the Word of God and find yourself compelled to obey it. Do you try to live out what you encounter in the Bible? See 1 John 2:3-5.

Do you despise the world and its ways (world meaning the world system not creation)? Do you immerse youself in the things of this world and love this world more than God? See 1 John 2:15.

Do you long for the return of Jesus Christ and long to be made like Him? Do you dream about a time when you will be with Christ? Do you ever longinly wonder what it will be like to never think another sinful thought or sinful act? See 1 John 2:2-3.

Do you habitually do what is right more and sin less? Are you growing and fighting sin in your life? See 1 John 3:7-8,10.

Do you love other Christians sacrifically and want to be with them? Do you sacrifice money, time, comfort because of the depth of your love for your Christian brothers and sisters and God? See 1 John 3:14.

Do you discern the presence of the Holy Spirit within you? Does the Holy Spirit make himself known in you through speaking assurace through your mind, cause you to love God and hate the world, look forward to Christ's return, sacrifice for other Christians, or become overjoyed in your thoughts of God? See 1 John 4:13.

Do you enjoy listening to the doctrines the apostles taught? Are you hungry to hear the bible taught in depth? Do you love to discuss the Bible with other Christians? See 1 John 4:6.

Do you believe what the Bible teaches about Jesus Christ? Resurrection, sinless, divinity, humanity, etc. Do you treasure Jesus Christ and love reading about Him in the Bible?

Do these evidences describe you? If not then no previous experience should hold any weight in determining whether you know God or not. If these evidences from 1 John do describe you (not perfectly of course but for the most part) then you can rest in God's promises of 1 John.

Thou, Our Guide.

Here are some excerpts from J.I. Packer's book Knowing God:

Thou, Our Guide.

Belief that divine guidance is real rests upon two foundation-facts: first, the reality of God's plan for us; second, the ability of God to communicate with us.

Has God a plan for individuals? Indeed he has. He has formed an "eternal purpose", "a plan for the fulness of time" in accordance with which he "accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will" (Eph 3:11, 1:10-11). God has a plan for each of His children.

But can God communicate that plan to us? Indeed he can. As man is a communicative animal, so his Maker is a communicative God. He made known his will to and through the Old Testament prophets. He guided Jesus and Paul.

Scripture contains explicit promises of divine guidance, whereby we may know God's plan for our action. "I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you," says God to David (Ps. 32:8). In the New Testament...Paul counsels, "Let your minds be remade and your whole nature thus transformed. Then you will be able to discern the will of God, and to know what is good, acceptable, and perfect" (Romans 12:2).

Christians have an indwelling instructor, the Holy Spirit. "You have been anointed by the Holy One . . . The anointing which you received from him abides in you, . . . his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie" (1 Jn. 2:20, 27). The giving of guidance is specifically ascribed to the Spirit.

It is impossible to doubt that guidance is a reality intended for, and promised to, every child of God. Christians who miss it thereby show only that they did not seek it as they should. It is right, therefore, to be concerned about one's own receptiveness to guidance, and to study how to seek it.

How We Receive Guidance

The basic mistake is to think of guidance as essentially inward prompting by the Holy Spirit, apart from the written word. The consequences of this mistake among earnest Christians have been both cosmic and tragic. The idea of a life in which the inward voice of the Spirit decides and directs everything sounds most attractive, for it seems to exalt the Spirit's ministry and to promise the closest intimacy with God; but in practice this quest for superspirituality leads only to frantic bewilderment or lunacy.

The true way to honor the Holy Spirit as our guide is to honor the holy Scriptures through which he guides us. The fundamental guidance which God gives to shape our lives -- the instilling, that is, of the basic convictions, attitudes, ideals, and value judgments, in terms of which we are to live, -- is not a matter of inward promptings apart from the Word, but of the pressure on our consciences of the portrayal of God's character and will in the Word, which the Spirit enlightens us to understand and apply ourselves.

The Spirit leads within the limits which the Word sets, not beyond them. "He guides me in paths of righteousness" -- but not anywhere else.

Guidance, like all God's blessings is a sovereign act. Not merely does God will to guide us in the sense of showing us his way, that we may tread it; he will also to guide us in the more fundamental sense of ensuring that, whatever happens, whatever mistakes we may make, we shall come safely home. Slippings and strayings there will be, no doubt, but the everlasting arms are beneath us; we shall be caught, rescued, restored. This is God's promise; this is how good he is.

Idolatry, Part 2

Remember the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the Book of Daniel? Let me sum it up real quick and make some quick observations.

King Nebuchadnezer decrees that at the sound of all kinds of music every man shall fall down and worship the golden image that he has set up or be cast into a fiery furnace. It is brought to his attention that there are some Jews (our three friends) that are not obeying the King and do not worship this golden image when the music plays. The king gets very angry. He summons our boys and gives them another chance to worship the golden image or die. They respond by saying,

O Nebuchadnzer, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.

Shad, Mesh, and Abednego were willing to die rather than worship anything other than the one, true, living God. They knew and strived to obey the commandment "You shall have no other gods before me."

King David says in Psalm 63, "Because your lovingkindness is better than life my lips will praise you." Is God's love better than life to you? Here are some helpful questions similar to this that help us evaluate what we value most in our lives:

Do I think that God's lovingkindness is better than a nice car (or even a working car)?
Do I think that God's lovingkindness is better than good health?
Do I think that God's lovingkindness is better than an easy life?
Do I think that God's lovingkindness is better than a godly husband/wife?
Do I think that God's lovingkindness is better than obedient children?
Do I prize God more than everything else in my life? If everything around you was going wrong and nothing went your way would you be content and still be able to praise God?
What do I think I need besides God?
In your life right now what do you place the most value on? You can see this by asking yourself, "How would I respond if _______(spouse, children, health, job, money, house, etc) were taken away from me? Would you with Job be able to say "Blessed be the name of the Lord." or with his wife who encouraged Job to "curse God and die."

Think about it.

Updated "One God" Schedule

Here is the updated "One God" schedule.

March 16 - What is Idolatry?
March 23 - God is our Guide
March 30 - Do You Know God?
April 6 - One God Celebration

April 13 - Begin New Spiritual Disciplines Study

The new schedule for the spiritual disciplines study should be up some time today if you are interested.

Give me children, or else I'll die. - Idolatry

In the book Idols of the Heart, Elyse Fitzpatrick reminds us of the story of Rachel in Genesis 29-31. After seeing her sister Leah have six sons and longing for the favor of her husband Jacob, she demands of God, "Give me children, or else I'll die." That is a pretty strong statement. "God, give me this or else." We would all agree that a desire for children is not wrong but a desire for children that says, "I must have more children to be happy" is idol worship. Rachel believed that having children was something she had to have so it was her god.

So what is an idol? Fitzpatrick goes on to say that "idols are thoughts, desires, longings, and expectations that we worship in the place of the true God. Idols cause us to ignore the true God in search of what we think we need."

Idolatry is all about love. Read Matthew 22:37-38. We worship what we love the most. Rachel loved the idea of having children. So much so that she had to have children or else she felt like she would die (Fitzpatrick notes the irony that Rachel died giving birth to her second child). What we love and want most is our god.

In 1 John 5:21 when John says, "Little children, guard yourselve from idols" he is essentially saying what Solomon has already said in Proverbs 4:23, "Guard your heart with all vigilance for from it flow the springs of life."

What do you desire more than anything? What do you have to have in order to be happy? What do you want so badly that you say to God, "Give me this, or else I'll die"?

Your answer to these questions reveals what you worship. Your answer reveals who your god is. Idolatry is when your answer to the above questions is something other than our triune God of the Bible.

This week spend time thinking about what you love the most in your life. What do you desire? On what do your affections rest on? Do not be surprised if your joy and love do not rest on Christ alone. John Calvin once wrote that man's nature is a "factory of idols." But Christ came to change our hearts from being hearts of stone to hearts of flesh. We have been made into a new creation, because of the work of Jesus Christ. We have hearts that can love God more than the things of this world. At one time you were enslaved to these idols, but no longer. "For freedom Christ has set you free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery" Galatians 5:1.

With arms wide open, Christ is calling us to repentance and faith. Run to Him today and allow the person of Jesus Christ to capture your heart. And be ready to challenge your students this week to do the same. They may not have a miniture Buddah at home that they worship, but their hearts do worship something. Challenge them to find out what that something is and lead them to love God above all things.