Knowing God changes why you seek Him

If love grows out of knowing God, the next question is practical: where do you get to know Him? The answer is the one you’d expect, but most of us read it the wrong way round.

How most of us read

When many believers open the Bible, they’re looking for instructions. What should I do? What should I stop doing? That’s a good question, and the Bible answers it. But if it’s the only question you ask, you can read for years and come away knowing many rules and very little about the One who gave them.

So before you ask what to do, ask who God is.

Questions to bring to any passage

Next time you read, take these with you:

What does this passage show me about who God is?
What does it reveal about His character?
What is God doing here, and what does that teach me about Him?
Am I only learning what I should do, or also who God is?

If you’ve done a Discovery Bible Study, you’ll recognise this. It’s the Digest step of Eat → Digest → Grow: you eat the passage by reading it, re-reading it and retelling it in your own words; then you digest it with the questions, and the first one is always what does this teach me about God? This chapter just asks you to slow down on that one. Grow is God’s part, not yours.

Try it on a small passage

Scripture — 1 John 4:9–10 (OTB)

This is how the love of God was revealed among us: God sent His only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Read it twice. Say it back in your own words. Then, before you think about what to do, ask: What does this show me about God? Let yourself stay there a while. He moves first. He gives what costs Him most. He does it for people who hadn’t loved Him yet.

That’s a God it’s possible to love.

One attribute at a time

You don’t have to understand everything about God at once. Pick one thing about Him: His faithfulness, His patience, His mercy, His holiness. Watch for it this week. Notice it in what you read, and notice it in your day.

Recite this

First ask who God is. Then ask what to do.

Try it this week

Choose one attribute of God you’d like to know better, and look for it in your reading every day this week. Write down why knowing that about Him would help you love Him.

The attribute I’ll look for is ________________. I’ll start on ________________, and I’ll tell ________________ what I find.