Audio Files

Knowing God, not just about God  

  (Audio)

2:37

These are excerpts from messages given to those in a recovery program. 

Most of the subject matter in these clips applies to all Christians.

TRANSCRIPT

In the spiritual realm. The spiritual disciplines are, time praying and our time getting to know God. Okay? And I want you to get this part of it, alright?

When, you could take people you don't know here, right? And say, write a list of your birthday, your favorite color, your favorite sport, and list of 20 or 30 different things, right? And you could read those things and somebody said, what do you, what do you know about him? Oh, well his favorite color is this and his favorite, this, this and this and that.  What do you know about him? If you haven't spent any time with him, what do you know about the way he reacts to things? you don't know anything. You don't know him, right? You know about him, right?

   When we read the Bible without looking, trying to get to know God, we can be learning a lot about God without getting to know Him. 

He, it's good to know about him, alright? But it doesn't bring the fulfillment. It doesn't bring what you need in your life just to know about him. You need to get to know him and the way you get to know him as you, as you experience Him, God, in the midst of your life. And you look back onto what you read in the Bible or what you learned in the Bible, whether it was that morning or three years ago, and you bring it all together.

And so when, for example, when he says you'll keep in perfect peace, him whose mind is steadfast because he trusts in you. (Isa 26:3) And then something happens. If somebody's messing with you and they're giving you all this grief and you stop and you say, oh, I remember that verse. Do I trust you right now, Lord? No. And you stop and say no.  

You say, Lord, I want to trust you that when this person is doing this, this thing is happening to me. That you're bigger. (Rom 4:21) I read that you're bigger in all this stuff and you do it and you feel God's peace and you got to know God a little bit better. He, so he's the God that helps me to be more than a conqueror in all that I go through. (Rom 8:31) Amen. He wants us to take everything we face horizontally on this earth. Okay?  

I'm summarizing with this, so get this.

   He wants to take everything that we face horizontally here and go vertical.

This is it. There's anything you could hear from me that you put into practice. This is it. Out of the whole thing, everything you face on this earth. What's this about? (James 1:5) Lord, help me through this Lord. (Phil 4:6-7)