I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him better. (Ephesians 1:17, NIV)
I don’t know about you, but I am constantly trying to get information about how to play better golf. It is such a fascinating and frustrating sport. You start with basic information about how to play the game and then spend the rest of your life learning little by little the details of what makes you be a better player. The amount of information you can amass is limited only by how much time you have to devote to its pursuit.
God is not distant or uninvolved with our lives. Rather he is concerned about everything that happens to us.I have found this same principle to be true as I seek to know God better. I remember initially coming to know about him, but my pursuit now is to know him in a personal way. This is as great of a distinction as the difference between being a good ballstriker and a player of the game. We can work forever on our knowledge about how to strike a ball but never really come to understand the pure pleasure of playing the game. The same is true of our relationship with God. We can know everything there is to know about God, but until we come to know him as someone who is real and involved in the minute details of our life we have missed the point of why he created us in the first place. We were created to be intimately connected to him—as sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, and as spirit to Spirit.
Our scripture for today is part of the apostle Paul’s prayer request for the Ephesian believers and it applies to all who trust in Jesus today. We can pray for wisdom and revelation provided to us by the Holy Spirt who comes to live inside us when we trust in Jesus. It is through this relationship that we truly come to know God as our Father, Jesus as our brother, and the Holy Spirit as our comforter and friend. We will gain intimate knowledge of who God is when we trust in him and allow him to give us true revelation and wisdom about who he is and what he expects from us.
What we will come to know is the pure joy of knowing the how and why of his purposes for us as individual human beings. He is very specific as to his intentions toward us. He is not distant or uninvolved with our lives. Rather he is concerned about everything that happens to us. He knows the number of hairs on our head and he most certainly is aware of our problems and fears. He is entirely trustworthy and there is nothing that can separate us from his love for us.
How do we know that for sure? Our relationship with God, over time, teaches us—if we allow him access to the deepest parts of who we are. We can know about him or we can really know him. The choice is ours and the benefits are as great as the difference between being a good ballstriker and really learning to play the game.
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Linda Ballard
July 5, 2018
Copyright 2018 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.