I think if we looked at the church as a whole and pondered whether it's where it should be, I think most of us would most likely agree that a lot needs to be done. Remember however that the church isn't a distant separate part of who we are. It's the body of believers like you and me. The church that is on fire for God is a church with people who love and seek the Lord. That change can begin with you or I. On the other side of the coin is that a casual indifference to our spiritual intimacy with Christ from either you or I can assist the decline of the church.

We've spent a lot of time going through the attributes that God has made known about Himself. It is my hope and prayer that faith in these attributes will lead to a deep rooted love for God and an unshakeable foundation to keep you standing firm above all doubt, anxiety or any other attack on your faith.

We need to seek to be a people who desire to know God intimately. There are a lot of people who seek after God. When there is a tragedy we see people calling on God. When people are in need they seek God. People seek God to bring success into some area of their lives. The seeking that is greatly missing in our churches is to seek to know God intimately, driven by no other motivation than our love and thanksgiving for Him.

To know God is not just a matter of study. It comes by wisdom that the natural man knows nothing of because it is spiritually discerned. In some ways knowing God is both the easiest and the hardest thing for us to do. It can be the easiest because it requires no great mental strength or work as it is freely given. Just as sunlight falls upon an open paddock, so the knowledge of God is freely available to those who are open to receive it. What can make this a hard thing for man is that the conditions for receiving such knowledge are not appealing to the fallen man.

A pure heart is a key factor in seeking God. There are many who feel like their spiritual lives are getting nowhere while at the same time their lives are clearly more in love with the world than with God. Jesus stated that you cannot serve two gods.

In the Hebrew book "The Wisdom of Solomon", Solomon writes;

We all know what Revelation 3 has to say about "lukewarm" believers. The word translated as 'believe' in John 3:16 and other great passages on salvation is the word "pisteuo" which means to commit or entrust. Despite the poor pictures we see of marriages these days, the word commit was never intended to be a temporary or half-hearted word. We are to be so committed to God, His word and our neighbours.

The Bible never refers to the Christian life through salvation in Christ as some form of 'upgrade'. As the common expression says, we are 'born again'. It's an entirely new life. The old has been put to death and the new has come. There are many who pray to be filled with the spirit. In my experience, when you want to fill a container with something, you need to make sure it's empty of anything else first. If I have a bucket full of sand and I ask someone to fill it with water, they can't do this unless the sand is first removed. As much as we may be quick to ask God to fill our lives, we're not always quick to be prepared to remove ungodly habits, thoughts or values from our lives.

13. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live,
14. because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

4. DO NOT LOVE THE WORLD

We need to push aside the cheapened values, morals and attractions of the world. Our hearts are not to desire the things that the unbelievers set their heart upon.

(James 4:4 NIV) You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

1 John 2:15-17 (NIV)

15. Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16. For everything in the world--the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does--comes not from the Father but from the world.
17. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

After all, we have been called to live holy lives. Holy means to be set apart for God. The New Testament is full of verses addressing our need to be separate from the world's values. Our identity is not in the world but in our Lord Jesus Christ.

All of these things we have studied are pure light to the soul and solid ground upon which our faith stands. Our minds in most cases don't take sufficient time to think upon the greatness of our God and we often settle for a standard much lower than that of which God is worthy. Remember back to day one – Your spiritual lives, growth and service will only ever be as high or as low as your thoughts are of God. God is a person who can be known and wants to be known. As with any relationship, to know God requires a desire to know Him.

The knowledge of God isn't just to be enjoyed selfishly. Our service and our relationships with others will inevitably strengthened by this knowledge. This is God's will, that we seek to know Him and that our lives be changed to reflect the life that He has given us.

The better we know God, the more we are going to apply that knowledge into deeds of love and mercy to the world around us. Here lies the difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is retaining information. Wisdom, particularly as the Bible sees it, is the skilful application of that knowledge. The word translated as wisdom in our Bibles, literally means "skilful living".

This is the end of our study on knowing God. If this study has caused anyone to commit their life's goal to actively seeking God daily, then there can be no greater joy in putting this together. There is nothing more important than for us to know God. The knowledge of God is our life. We have a relatively small time here on earth. Let's faithfully represent our Lord.

Last night I started reading another book by A.W. Tozer called, "The Pursuit Of God". The very first chapter was titled, "Following Hard After God". The first line in the book is quoting Psalm 63:8 from the King James Version which says,

The word translated "follows hard" is the Hebrew word, "dabaq". The definitions of that word from my Concordance are below. Do these words describe the way seek after God?

At the end of the first chapter of "The Pursuit Of God", Tozer writes a beautiful prayer. Do your prayers sound at all like this? Do you thirst to know God like this?