I saw a lot of myself in The God You Can Know. I saw both good things and bad things from my past and present. “We must find our security in God before we seek it in an activity for God.” I was doing it the other way around. I enjoyed the parts describing God’s character, but it wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard growing up in church or learned in Bible class in high school. Even still, it was a good reminder. DeHaan says we must know God before we can do His will. Similarly to what we learned in The Principle of the Path, Dan later asks “What things is your mind set on the most? You must answer that question. It will determine your entire character.” Knowing God, thinking about him, and focusing on him will consequently make us more like him. Attention determines direction which ultimately determines your destination. It also reminds me of my favorite passage rewritten in the Message – Love the Lord your God with all your passion, prayer, intelligence and energy.

By far though, the thing that jumped out at me most was the depth of conveying God as Father and the supremacy of that title. I always knew God as the Father, but didn’t realize that all of his other titles and attributes fell perfectly in line with that as His ultimate title. On a related note, the constant metaphor God uses throughout scripture is family, marriage, etc. All of them are intimately relational, and the church as a whole completely misses the point both in their own hearts and explaining it others. We teach people to agree with a set of ideas and say a certain prayer instead of just falling in love with a Savior and a Father that would do anything to be with us. “Believers have failed to see God first of all as a father. That is why the church is not functioning like a good family.”

There was a lot more to this book than I can write in one page, and more than I can get in just one pass. I definitely want to re-read the whole book again. The story of the bride revealed that I still struggle with being loved beyond anything I do. I’m fine with grace to a point, but at some point I want to contribute. That’s like switching places with Jesus on the cross before He’s about to die. It ends with me trying to take over, voiding everything He has done until now and ultimately accomplishing nothing because I cannot do it on my own.

Quotes from the book I liked:

1. We must find our security in God before we seek it in an activity for God (p.15)
2. It’s the conscious worship of God’s character that conforms us to what we worship. We always become what we worship. (p.18)
3. What things is your mind set on the most? You must answer that question. It will determine your entire character. (p.19)
4. Seeing that every creation does what it is created to do with the exception of man makes God’s dealings with man all the more significant (p.32)
5. Redemption is more than a tender Father’s searching for His child; it is a holy God wrestling with the sin of the world. (p.79)
6. Believers have failed to see God first of all as a father. That is why the church is not functioning like a good family. (p.94)
7. Blessed is the one that desires God rather than what He can give. (p.102)
8. If God has forgiven you, walk like a forgiven man. (p.118)
9. You see, there is no such thing as an unforgiven sin in the life of a Christian. All sins are forgiven – past, present and future. Then… Why ask forgiveness? The answer is to have your joy restored. (p.122)
10. If a Christian fails to conform to the pattern of the Bible, it is not because he lacks rules; it is because he lacks love. (p.125)