Spooks
As a medical student I guess my favourite television programme should be ER or House, but the one programme I can never miss is Spooks. In fact I think ‘love’ might be an understatement when describing how I feel about it.
Not only do I have all the DVDs, know where all the characters went to university and who in real life fell in love with who across the studio set. I also know the words to pretty much all the episodes! If my friends ever need to know an obscure fact about
The same applies to knowing about God. The great thing is that God hasn’t left us to our own devices when trying to get to know more about him. He gives us his Spirit, who glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ by taking the things of Christ and showing them to us (John 16:14-15).
In 1 Corinthians 2:11-12 it says: ‘For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given by God’.
No excuse
If you want to know someone better you talk to them directly, don’t you? So too should be our approach to God. The sad fact is that we don’t always take the opportunities God gives us to get to know him better.
Suddenly, sleep seems more appealing than getting up early enough to read your Bible. Revision for those end-of-year exams seems more important than going to the evening service at church. Conversation with friends about what God has been teaching you all recently comes low on the agenda.
Yet if an attractive member of the opposite sex offered to take you out for dinner so that you could get to know them better, I’m sure these factors wouldn’t even feature in your decision making. I guess it’s down to priorities.
Fortunately for us, it’s not like we are on our own. God has given us his Holy Spirit to help us understand his word. The Bible is difficult to understand in parts, and there are also the bits you
However, if we claim we want to know God more – to find out how to live lives that glorify his name – we need to know where to look for the answers, and that is the Bible. It is completely inspired by God (literally, ‘God-breathed’; 2 Timothy 3:16) and with his Spirit to help us understand it, we really have no excuse not to read it!<
In awe of Christ
Recently, I’ve been challenged about this, thinking how much I was missing out learning about God because I hadn’t asked the Holy Spirit to teach me. After all, God promises: ‘Ask and it will be given unto you’.
So I made a conscious effort, before each Bible reading, and before each sermon at church, to ask God to reveal to me more about himself. Not once has he let me down. I have learnt so much since I started asking more.
Don’t think it has been easy! I’m now more than ever aware of my sin and how much I fail to live up to God’s standards, but it has been totally worth it. I’m now more in awe of my Saviour, because through him and his atoning sacrifice, I can come to the Father and enjoy a deep personal relationship with him.
Desiring to know more about God, I’m now excited to open my Bible each day in anticipation of what I will learn. But it doesn’t stop there. The more I learn, the more I realise how much more there is to learn – which spurs me on to read and meditate on Scripture even more!
So I challenge you to really get to know God through his Word. Ask him to reveal more about himself to you – and get excited about what he does graciously choose to reveal. It really is awesome stuff!
Rachel Hubbard
