Knowing God - Part 6

"Also I gave them My sabbaths to be a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them." Ezekiel 20:12

Believers can know God better through worship. God originally gave the instruction of the above verse to Moses and Israel in Exodus 29:46. God intended for the special days that He had set aside, whether on a weekly basis or scattered throughout the year, to teach His people more about Himself. How can worship accomplish that objective?

First, we cannot know someone that we do not think about. God often referred to Israel's tendency to forget Him. The Sabbath, when properly observed, brought the mind of the people back to God on a regular basis. While I doubt that the readers of this blog are guilty of forgetting God to an extreme extent, I also believe that we can readily relate to how easy it is to forget God in the course of our daily lives.

We joke about dusting off our Bibles to bring to church with us; we sometimes realize we haven't opened them since the last time we were in church. Regarding church, it seems that Christians in general are less faithful to attend regularly. How many of our churches would be big enough to accommodate the crowd if everyone that sometimes attends were to come on the same week? When weeks pass between visits, the gaps between times in the Word become even longer. Then there is prayer. How long do we go between times of serious prayer? Days? Weeks? Do we ever find ourselves realizing that we haven't really talked to God since the last time we were in prayer meeting?

Again, I hope that these extremes are not true of myself or my readers, but they certainly are true of many Christians. For those who are faithful in church - in observing God's sabbaths, as it were - I believe we can easily recognize the value our worship has on our walk with God. Faithfulness in gathering together enhances and strengthens the way in which we seek God on a daily basis. Regular corporate worship prompts desire and increases the appetite for regular personal worship; it puts the heart and mind in a more conducive state to seek God. It establishes the premise that God is important enough to me that I am willing to set aside time for Him, and that time is enjoyed both publically and privately.

Second, worship aids our knowledge of God not only by regularly bringing our minds to God, but also by the particular aspects that it brings to our minds. Let us consider what happens in worship, whether public or private, that facilitates our learning about God.

We are instructed about God from His Word. Preaching, teaching, and personal study regularly touch upon aspects of God's character and how they are expressed in the lives of people. We are reminded or informed of what God has done. As we hear of answers to prayer, listen to the testimonies of others, and observe God's work in their lives, we see more and more illustrations of God's character. Through testimony times, we are called upon to reflect on how God has been faithful to Himself in our own lives. Singing also builds our knowledge of God; good hymns are filled with truth about the character of God, and the nature of singing makes it easy for us to remember those truths even after the hymn has ended.

In conclusion, worship helps us to learn about God by regularly reminding us to think about Him and by providing avenues that prompt us to do so in particularly meaningful ways. Worship indicates God's importance to us and implies that He is important enough to know well.

Related to the topic of worship, we can also learn to know God better through the influence of others. Psalm 78:4-7 describes how this process can work: "We will not conceal them from their children, but tell to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and His strength and His wondrous works that He has done. For He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers that they should teach them to their children, that the generation to come might know, even the children yet to be born, that they may arise and tell them to their children, that they should put their confidence in God and not forget the works of God."

Believers should be on both ends of this spectrum. We should be strengthened in our knowledge of God by listening to others, and we should strengthen the knowledge of God in others through our words to them. God provides people in our lives to give this type of instruction (Jeremiah 3:15), and He also wants us to give instruction about Him and His works to others (Ezekiel 24:27). Like Paul, we can pray for other believers to grow in their knowledge of God and what is important to Him (Colossians 1:9).

This truth of the influence we ought to have on others emphasizes the importance not just of joining together at church, but specifically of having conversations (both in church and beyond) that declare the greatness of God. Helping one another to learn more about God should be evident in our interactions. In addition to conversations with people who are around us now, we can also learn much from the biographies and writings of those who have gone before us.

"Oh give thanks to the LORD, call upon His name; make known His deeds among the peoples." Psalm 105:1 (NASB)