Knowing God

I have sought you with all my heart; don’t let me wander from your commands.

Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light on my path.

I love those who love me, and those who search for me find me.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways.” This is the LORD’s declaration.

“‘This is what the LORD says: The wise person should not boast in his wisdom; the strong should not boast in his strength; the wealthy should not boast in his wealth.

But the one who boasts should boast in this: that he understands and knows me  — that I am the LORD, showing faithful love, justice, and righteousness on the earth, for I delight in these things. This is the LORD’s declaration.

For I know the plans I have for you”  — this is the LORD’s declaration — “plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

You will call to me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.

You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.

“Instead, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days” — the LORD’s declaration. “I will put my teaching within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.

No longer will one teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them”  — this is the LORD’s declaration. “For I will forgive their iniquity and never again remember their sin.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Jesus spoke these things, looked up to heaven, and said: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you,

since you gave him authority over all flesh, so that he may give eternal life to everyone you have given him.

This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and the one you have sent — Jesus Christ.

I have glorified you on the earth by completing the work you gave me to do.

Now, Father, glorify me in your presence with that glory I had with you before the world existed.

“I have revealed your name to the people you gave me from the world. They were yours, you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.

Now they know that everything you have given is from you,

because I have given them the words you gave me. They have received them and have known for certain that I came from you. They have believed that you sent me.

“I pray for them. I am not praying for the world but for those you have given me, because they are yours.

Everything I have is yours, and everything you have is mine, and I am glorified in them.

I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by your name that you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one.

While I was with them, I was protecting them by your name that you have given me. I guarded them and not one of them is lost, except the son of destruction, so that the Scripture may be fulfilled.

Now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy completed in them.

I have given them your word. The world hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

I am not praying that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.

They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.

As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.

I sanctify myself for them, so that they also may be sanctified by the truth.

“I pray not only for these, but also for those who believe in me through their word.

May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me.

I have given them the glory you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one.

I am in them and you are in me, so that they may be made completely one, that the world may know you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me.

“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so that they will see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the world’s foundation.

Righteous Father, the world has not known you. However, I have known you, and they have known that you sent me.

I made your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love you have loved me with may be in them and I may be in them.”

Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

My goal is to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death,

All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness,

For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity.

Everyone who remains in him does not sin; everyone who sins has not seen him or known him.

We are from God. Anyone who knows God listens to us; anyone who is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deception.

Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.