[Lee Grzywinski]

Hello, my Fellow Summer Readers!

What a great start to a great book. I remember when J.I. Packer passed on to glory a few years back, I thought it was a great loss for Christians. He has a way about his writing that makes you want God more as you read. This book is the best example of that.

As soon as a book starts with an extended quote from Spurgeon, you know you’re in for something great 🙂 But trying to grasp the character and nature of God is not an easy task. Yet Packer is right, trying to live in God’s world without trying to know God is just being cruel to ourselves. It is also foolish, don’t you think?

I appreciate that Packer is very Bible-focused. He gives five “foundation-principles” for knowing God, and the first and last are about God’s Word. It is so important to know your Bible – your WHOLE Bible, because it is God revealing Himself to man.

His question about our motives is just as important. Why do we want to occupy our minds with God? Do we want to know about God, or truly know God? This is an important distinction. This is a distinction that I have struggled with in the past. Learning so much about God can sometimes take our eyes off of God Himself, believe it or not. It is only our knowledge about God applied to our relationship to Him that really matters. Packer’s insistence that people who really know God are people who pray is a great measuring stick in this. So let’s all consider our motives in this! Then let’s acknowledge how we don’t know about God as much as we should, and seek Him!

What are your thoughts? If this is the first time reading Packer, what do you think of his writing style?

[Lilla Langford]

This book looks like what I am looking for, not just knowing about God, but knowing God and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering.
The assessment is helpful and sobering. I have a long way to go.
Thanks for having a book club on this book.
May I persevere to the end!

[Carolyn Hayes]

I am so glad that we are reading this book because I have been struggling with the scripture Matthew 7:21-23 where Jesus says, “Not all who call to Me, “lord, Lord! Only those who actually do the will of My Father will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” . . . I will reply, “I never Knew you. Depart from Me. You who break God’s laws.” Satan has been tormenting me and twisting this scripture to say: “Depart from Me. I never knew you, and you never knew Me.” Therefore, reading this book is a confirmation from the Holy Spirit within me saying, “Satan has been twisting that scripture. It doesn’t say, “Depart from Me because you never knew Me; you only knew about Me.” Therefore, this book is very important to me because I know a lot about God, but, by reading this book, I want to work toward knowing God – really knowing God not merely knowing about Him. I truly want my heart to grasp God’s power and the grace He so beautifully gifted to me. I want to have a clear apprehension and a deep understanding so much so that I want to have a deep heart change caused by a longing for really knowing God. I want this book to pierce my heart and my soul so that when I meet Jesus, He will say to me, “You longed for a deep knowing of Me, a heart knowing of Me and I revealed Myself to you. I so want to know God; I really do.
With that being my goal and my heart’s desire, I want to read this book and “drink in” all that it has to offer so that I can finish this book with my heart singing, “Yes, I really do know God because my heart “gets it” . . . yes, my heart really, really gets it. Because science says that the longest distance in our bodies is the heart knowledge that gets stuck in our brains and that 18 inch distance between our brain and our heart is the greatest distance to tackle; however, I pray that Jesus gives me the wisdom to tackle the head knowledge I have about God and helps me to change that knowledge to heart knowledge. Amen and Amen.

[Blanca Saccomanno]

I’ve had this book on my reading list for years it was highly recommended by many who claimed it made a huge impact on their life. Chapter 1 emphasizes the importance of knowing God not just having a knowledge of God. Do I study in order to know God or to acquire knowledge? I have to confess I am often guilty of the latter. Packer gives the solution on page 23 on how to turn knowledge about God into knowledge of God through meditating on what we have learned through the scriptures, dwelling on his attributes, thinking over and applying his promises. We all come with preconceived ideas on who God is by what we have heard or from our own experiences but we have to allow the scriptures to reveal who God is and change our erroneous thoughts. One of the most impactful testimonies I’ve ever heard was from a friend who said that when she became a Christian she got alone with her Bible and read through the gospels making a note of what the gospels said about Jesus and she just fell in love with her savior. In chapter 2 we read that those who know God live with the assurance of his sovereignty. not in fear of their present circumstances but with the conviction that no matter how things turn out God is in control and he is our reward. What a great reminder especially in the chaos of the last few days to know that He alone is the one true God and he places kings and removes them. Those who know God are bold and live in peace with the assurance that he is the only true King and ruler over the whole earth. I am excited to go on this journey and as Bunyan’s pilgrim put his fingers in his ears may I do the same and shut out all the noise and commit to travel this road until the end. (19)

[Mark M]

I’m really enjoying re-reading this again after a long time. I often catch myself in the knowing a lot about God, or about how the structure of a church works, or social norms, but not on the focus on knowing God himself. (the discussion on pages 26-27). And the question then becomes — do I really have great energy for, thoughts of, and boldness for God? Like everything, it fluctuates day to day, and thankfully I’m not perfect. So thank you friends for going on this journey to help me grow here too.

[Lynne Mazza-Hilway]

Our community group did a study on the attributes of God, took about a year to study only about 22 of them. The one, the fact that He’s incomprehensible, says that He’s unable to be fully know so we “will never exhaust our study of who He is or fully grasp His limitless being.” Yet as Packer points out, we aren’t just looking for head knowledge but a relationship with a living God that transforms us daily into His image. “The marks of those who have known God are rare among us.” Such a conviction, thank God for His Spirit who helps us as we continually seek Him. Love the discussion on our “losses and crosses that cease to matter when we know God.” They shall know us by our fruit;it should be evident by our thoughts, actions and presence, that we have been with and in the presence of our Holy Trinity.

[Theresa]

I was gifted this book when I became a Christian but for some reason never got around to reading it until about a month ago. I was a couple of chapters into it when the virtual book club was announced in church. I am enjoying that the author speaks simply in a way that is easy to understand yet challenges me to think deeply. I keep coming back to the meditating on the truth section. “It is that we turn each truth that we learn about God into matter for meditation before God, leading to prayer and praise to God.” He talks about what that looks like through meditation (in a biblical way) and applying it to our lives. I was struck with how I focus a lot on prayer and spending time with God in His word but not nearly enough time meditating on it and on who God is and His character. I love lists and checking things off of them, and it has been a struggle in my Christian walk not to reduce my time with God to that. I look forward to seeing how God will use this book to challenge and change me.

[Nayara Jordan]

I have been meaning to read this book for some years now, so I’m excited to be reading this over the summer! I also was immediately moved by the Spurgeon quote. There is already so much wisdom in the pages, and I am looking forward to taking it slow and meditating on God and what it is to know him. Separately I am studying book 1 of the Psalms, and pray over all of us that, “his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.”

[Lilla]

I just read over the other submissions and identify with just about all of them. A huge thank you to each one who shares and allows the rest of us to know a little more of each other.
Carolyn, I, too have had that same temptation to worry that I will be told: Depart from me. I never knew you. And once again to be reassured that God knows me, He loves me, HE saves me; What a wonderful Savior. Just yesterday Dave and I were invited to eat with friends. The guy, “G” was sharing his having read some apocryphal accounts of who Jesus was. It seemed like he was inclined to believe those accounts and doubted the accounts of what we accept as the four Gospels. In my Bible study Community Group we started on the Gospel of John. There is so much sharing and discussion that we get through only a few verses each week. The result is, that I get a chance to go back over some of the same verses again and again. And John, himself, in those first several verses of John 1 repeats in different ways that Jesus is the Christ, God Himself, present and instrumental in Creation; this Jesus is Jesus, who became man, who died and rose again that He might live His name, Jesus, Savior and that we might have eternal life and know it. I was reminded of a biogrphy I read of E. Stanley Jones, who determined not to get caught up in useless arguements, but to proclaim Christ and Him alone. And in order to proclaim Him, I want to know Him. I was able to speak from those weeks of focussing on John 1:1-18. May “G” hear the truth.

[Marie]

This is my first time Reading packer and something I took notice of is Packer’s emphasis that knowing God is the most important pursuit of life. He contrasts knowing about God with truly knowing God personally, arguing that theology should lead to deeper relationship, not just head knowledge. Many people are content with knowing about God, but that is not the same as having a real relationship with our Lord and Savior . He shows how studying God is not optional for believers—it is essential and how real knowledge of God transforms our lives—it humbles us, strengthens us, and brings joy. I like how Packer warns against detached intellectualism and urges readers to approach theology with awe and reverence. This is so important because because it’s easy to fall into the trap of treating theology like a mere academic subject—studying facts, doctrines, and arguments without letting them transform our hearts. But Packer reminds us that theology is ultimately about a relationship with the living God. If we approach it without awe and reverence, we risk missing the very purpose of knowing God: worship, love, and obedience. I enjoyed reading how Packer explains what it means to truly know God and how that knowledge changes a person’s character and actions. Drawing from Daniel 11:32 (“the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action”), Packer outlines four characteristics of those who know God:
1. They have great energy for God.
2. They show great boldness for God.
3. They have great contentment in God.
4. They have great thoughts of God.
• Real knowledge of God brings inner strength and resilience in the face of trials.
• Packer stresses that experiential knowledge of God leads to action, not passivity.

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