Knowing and Loving God.

The Greeks had at least three (perhaps even four) words for it.  I know there are at least two in Spanish.  English uses just one:  Love.  Yeah, a blog about love and it is not even February!

The first of our three “Vision Statements” is #CompelledByLove.  It comes from 2 Corinthians 5:14 where Paul says, “The love of Christ compels us.”  Paul then mentions Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf - that Christ died for us.  This is the greatest love (John 15:13).  But what makes love like this possible?  From God’s perspective it is because He created us with value and worth - designating us as His “image-bearers,” the very pinnacle of His creative handiwork.  Wow.  But wait - there’s more!

God loves us because He created us and therefore He knows us.  I love how David expresses God’s love for us in Psalm 103.  He “redeems” us from the pit (v4), “satisfies” us (v5), is compassionate and gracious to us (v8), forgives us (v12), is faithful to us (v18), and assures us of His authority and sovereignty (v19).  Why?  Because He knows us and knows how vulnerable and fragile we are (v14):

For He Himself knows our frame;
He is mindful that we are but dust. (NASB)

God loves us because He knows us.  Now let’s look at that from a slightly different angle.  Scripture teaches us to “know God” more frequently than it instructs us to “love God” (and time for a quick disclaimer:  making theological conclusions about God based on statistics is dangerous and generally unwise - reader beware!).  We are not strangers to the admonitions to “love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind and soul.”  This, combined with “love your neighbour as yourself” forms the Great Commandment (Matt.  22:36-40).  By His own example we observe a strong relationship between loving and knowing.  We love what we know.

Let’s avoid another danger:  reducing our love of God to heartless facts.  “Knowing” God does not mean we are on an endless pursuit of reducing Him to a series of dogmatic statements or reverse engineering His presence in the world He created.  It does mean we pursue the life-skill of seeing His fingerprints in every dynamic of life.  We become convinced that even when we can’t see them we know they are there.  Wisdom - another word for life skills - is sourced in the “fear of the Lord.”  But Proverbs 9:10 goes on to say, “And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”

There are days when we all doubt God’s love and goodness.  Sometimes He feels far away.  Sometimes we wonder if He is too busy with other people’s problems that we have fallen off His radar.  These kinds of doubts form many of the psalms known as “lament psalms.”  We learn from the experiences of these poets that, in the end, God is faithful and His love for us is undeniable.  After doubting his faith, Asaph remembered the faithfulness of God (Psa. 73:21-27) and then concludes:


But as for me, the nearness of God is my good;
I have made the LORD God my refuge,
That I may tell of all His works. (NASB).


God does love us.  And as we continue to learn of Him, to understand how He has engaged in our time and space, we will increase our ability to trust Him, to be compelled by Him, and to love Him.  Even when its not February.

Graham Bulmer
Lead Pastor
graham@q50community.com
Graham and Sharon Bulmer bring many years of pastoral, teaching, leadership development and administrative experience to the Q50 Community Church plant. They served in Latin America as missionaries for almost 15 years, and have pastored here in Canada.