What's the point of studying God's Word and increasing in the knowledge of God? To glorify and delight in God through a deep personal knowledge of him. Meaningful relationship with God is dependent on correct knowledge of him.
Do you love the Lord? Do you long to live by faith so that you can please Him with your life and grow closer to Him as you live out each day? Do you tremble at His Word? Do you find true meaning and life by meditating on the scriptures day and night? Are you falling in love with God when He illuminates the scriptures and allows you to see Him? There is nothing like seeing God and knowing that you are loved by Christ. Nothing compares with His glory, His name, His love, His kindness, His majesty, His grace, His beauty, His freedom, His Spirit, His Word. Any theological system that distinguishes between “rational propositions about God” and “a personal relationship with God” fails to see this necessary connection between love and knowledge.
Does God's Word give you more than knowledge? Does God's Word transform you and cut the marrow from the bone and bring a song of praise to your lips? Does the Word of God live in you and bring the gospel into your thoughts? I hope so... because when it does, life is so sweet! Let's devote ourselves to Jesus Christ by His Wisdom, His strength, His power, His leading, His Truth, His forgiveness and once again His Word.
Knowledge without devotion is cold, dead orthodoxy. Devotion without knowledge is irrational instability. But true knowledge of God includes understanding everything from his perspective. Theology is learning to think God's thoughts after him. It is to learn what God loves and hates, and to see, hear, think, and act the way he does. Good theology is based in the belief that God exists, is personal, can be known, and has revealed himself. These presuppositions motivate theologians to devote themselves to a passionate pursuit of knowledge from God's Word. Loving God means loving truth. God is a God of truth; he is truth.
The greatest thing that could happen to you today would be for you to fall in love with the Bible. For you to devote yourself to The Word of God. For you to be changed by seeing the glory of God in the Scriptures. (2 Cor 3:18) For you to know the Christ of the Bible as your Savior, Master, Redeemer, Propitiation, Friend, Mediator, Justifier, Shepherd and source of Truth. God meets man's greatest need of relationship with him through an understanding of truth.
“O Lord God, you are God, and your words are true, and you have promised this good thing to your servant” (2 Sam. 7:28). “Every word of God proves true” (Prov. 30:5; Ps. 12:6; 119:42; John 17:17).
ALL WORDS IN ITALICS ARE FROM THE ESV STUDY BIBLE ARTICLE: "Biblical Doctrine- An Overview of True Theology: Knowing and Loving God"
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