Knowing God (Pt. 1)

I have been sending these messages for the past couple weeks now, and I have yet to tell you why I send them. It is quite simple really, I send them because I love God, and I am unashamed of the work He is doing. I also feel that a revival is soon coming and that this generation is the one to lead it, so by sending these letters I pray that God is using me to kindle a fire within you to speak boldly of who Christ is and what He has done; that the world might know the One true God, and that He is greatly to be praised. Thus having clearly stated that I would like to begin a series of messages on God, His attributes, His Creation, His word…etc. so that we all may better know the God we worship.

Knowing God (Part 1)

“Nearly all wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.” This is the opening line of John Calvin’s “Institutes of the Christian Religion” and it states the main problem. Who really knows himself and God? Is there anyone that has ever lived that has truly known himself? That has known every sin that lies within all the deep folds of their heart and mind, is it even possible? I can only speak from my experience, and that is it is impossible to completely know yourself. If you are completely honest you do not know all the sins that you have committed. However it goes far beyond that, we are born sinful, before we take our first breath we are consumed by sin. The reason being for not completely knowing ourselves is that we do not completely know God; we have failed to know God.
Before we go and blame it on God, we must first look at one of His attributes, which is His omnipotence. He is all-powerful. Since the fault is ours we can take comfort in the fact it can be corrected. He can do anything; He can intervene. But if (and more comfortably) the fault is God’s than nothing can be done to correct the problem. “The Bible declares that the problem is not God’s but ours. Therefore the problem is solvable. It is solvable because God can take, and actually has taken steps to reveal Himself to us, thereby providing us with the missing key to knowledge. (James Boice)”
However men and women do not naturally obey or worship this God, although they do have an awareness of Him, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead. (Romans 1:20)” From this we can see that man has willingly rejected God. Man can see his attributes in all of creation, but they turn away. Their heart screams, “Yes, there is a God!” But their mind yells, “There cannot be!” Thus they go on rejecting God by exchanging the truth of God for a lie, the lie of their mind.