The NIV 365 Day Devotional
Knowing God
”What am I here for?”
For many of us, this is the first question we have to address when we walk from the garage to the basement. We walk into the room and draw a blank. Then we stand there and wonder what tool we needed as we reflect on the impulse that stopped us from whatever we were doing in the garage and made us walk down those creaky stairs.
But this surface question belies a much deeper question that we all have to face as we get older and progress in our walk through life: the purpose of our existence.
At one point or another we all have questions about why we’ve been put on this earth. Whether our circumstances are happy or difficult, we wonder, “What in the world am I doing here, and what should I be doing here? Am I here on this earth to learn? To work? To find a mate and start a family?”
J. I. Packer, in his 1973 classic Knowing God, provides simple, rapid-fire answers to those questions: “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. What is the best thing in life, bringing more joy, delight and contentment than anything else? Knowledge of God.”
One of the great creeds of the church, the Westminster Shorter Catechism, puts it this way: “What is the chief end of man? To know God and enjoy him forever.” That’s as short and sweet as you’re gonna get.
Out of these answers the next questions arise: “How do I get to know God? What will I find out about him when I start down this path? How will my life be different when I start to get to know him better?” The wonderful thing about these questions is that there are answers in abundance within the pages of the Bible. Paul, in his letter to the Philippians that we’re reading for today, gives us this perspective on this priority: “I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ” (3:8–9).
Think about ways that you can, right now today, prioritize the process of coming to a deeper knowledge of God.
Oh and by the way, you went downstairs to look for the Phillips screwdriver that’s already in your back pocket.
Taken from the NIV Men’s Devotional Bible.