MARCH 19, 2013
First
Things First
Read: 1 Chronicles 28:5-10
Know the God of your
father, and serve Him with a loyal heart and
with a willing mind. —1 Chronicles 28:9
When
our granddaughter Sarah was very young, she told us she wanted to
be a
basketball coach like her daddy when she grew up. But she couldn’t be
one yet,
she said, because first she had to be a player; and a player has to
be able to
tie her shoelaces, and she couldn’t tie hers yet!
First
things first, we say. And the first thing in all of life is to know God and
enjoy Him.
Acknowledging
and knowing God helps us to become what we were meant to
be. Here is King
David’s counsel to his son Solomon: “Know the God of your
father, and serve Him
with a loyal heart and with a willing mind” (1 Chron. 28:9).
Remember,
God can be known. He is a Person, not a logical or theological
concept. He
thinks, wills, enjoys, feels, loves, and desires as any person does.
A. W.
Tozer writes, “He is a person and can be known in increasing degrees of
intimacy as we prepare our hearts for the wonder of it.” Ah, there’s the rub:
We must “prepare our hearts.”
The
Lord is not playing hard to know; those who want to know Him can. He will
not
foist His love on us, but He does wait patiently, for He wants to be known
by
you. Knowing Him is the first thing in life.
He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joys we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known.
—C. Austin Miles © Renewal 1940. The Rodeheaver Company
The thought of God staggers the mind but to know Him satisfies
the heart.
Source:
Our Daily Bread 2012
