The NIV 365-Day Devotional Reading PlanSample

Knowing God

What were we made for? To know God.

What aim should we set ourselves in life? To know God.

What is the “eternal life” that Jesus gives? Knowledge of God. “This is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” ( John 17:3).

What is the best thing in life, bringing more joy, delight and contentment than anything else? Knowledge of God. “This is what the Lord says: ‘Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me’ ” ( Jeremiah 9:23–24).

What, of all the states God ever sees man in, gives God most pleasure? Knowledge of himself. “I desired . . . the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings,” says God (Hosea 6:6 KJV).

In these few sentences we have said a very great deal. Our point is one to which every Christian heart will warm, though the person whose religion is merely formal will not be moved by it. (And by this very fact his unregenerate state may be known.) What we have said provides at once a foundation, shape and goal for our lives, plus a principle of priorities and a scale of values.

Once you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God, most of life’s problems fall into place of their own accord . . .

What makes life worthwhile is having a big enough objective, something which catches our imagination and lays hold of our allegiance; and this the Christian has in a way that no other person has. For what higher, more exalted, and more compelling goal can there be than to know God?

— J. I. Packer

Taken from NIV Men’s Devotional Bible