God's Presence

Not only does God provide a map - His Word - and a guide - Himself! - but God provides his presence.

The well-known pastor and theologian, J.I. Packer, explains it like this:

What matters supremely, therefore, is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it—the fact that he knows me. I am graven on the palms of his hands. I am never out of his mind. All my knowledge of him depends on his sustained initiative in knowing me. > > I know him because he first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, one who loves me; and there is no moment when his eye is off me, or his attention distracted from me, and no moment, therefore, when his care falters.

How can it be that God is constantly attentive to us? Part of this is God's omniscience, which we will discuss throughout First Love.

But praise God, it goes well beyond God's comprehensive knowledge.

As the theologian Fred Sanders writes, "A Christian, and especially an evangelical Christian, is somebody who is already immersed in the reality of the Trinity, long before beginning to reflect on the idea of the Trinity."

It would be one amazing truth to be completely known by God, and viewed favorably by him. But it is even more staggering to know that we are sons and daughters of the Father, united to Christ, indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

In 1 John 5:20, we read, "And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life."

And in John 14, Jesus tells his disciples, "And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you."

Wow. Think about this again: For he dwells with you and will be in you.

What this means is that "First Love" is not — at least at first — about our love for God. As you might have guessed, "First Love" refers — first of all — to God's love for us.