How to Best Live in This World
I've always found it fascinating that many people call themselves Christians, but seem to have no hunger for Christ. They profess faith in the God of the Universe, but they don't seem to really want to know him. I mean, it would seem that if you were going to follow and pledge your life to a deity that you would at least want to read his Book and know what's in there. There is certainly faith involved in Christianity, but it is not a blind faith.
J.I. Packer says, "Knowing about God is crucially important for the living of our lives." How true this is. We literally have access to the God who created and runs the world. He knows best how it works and we can hear from him in his Word and talk to him through prayer. Packer goes on to say, "We are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing about the God whose world it is and who runs it."
This truth is something we should impress upon the generations that come after us. In my younger years, I was somewhat of a rebel and rule breaker. My parents tried to raise me in the ways of the Lord, but many times I went my own way and learned lessons the hard way. As I get older, I see more clearly. God does not give us rules to stifle us and quench our fun. He gives us rules to increase our enjoyment of this world. He gives us rules to protect us from the painful effects that sin has produced all around us. I thought I was having more fun by breaking the rules, but more times than I can count I faced severe consequences for my actions—consequences that kept me up at night and filled me with fear and worry because of the things I had done. Oh how I would have been much happier if I had truly known God and that he wanted me to flourish and not wither. This truth needs passed along.
Packer wants to help us know this God. He does remind us though that we do with our knowledge of God is what matters. Will it puff us up in pride because we know more than the next Joe sitting beside us in worship or will it cause us to enjoy God more? Will it cause us to help others know and enjoy him more? Will this move us forward in his mission for us? Packer says, "We must seek, in studying God, to be led to God." It must be our desire to fall more and more in love with our God.
"It is that we turn each truth that we learn about God into matter for meditation before God, leading to prayer and praise to God."
