INTRODUCTION ============ Book: Knowing God, Loving God Umushumba Fidele Bolton URL: https://kgm-school-preview.netlify.app/library/en/knowing-god-loving-god/00-introduction/ INTRODUCTION ============ There is a door standing open in heaven. When the apostle John was given his great vision, the first thing he saw was not the judgments, nor the scrolls, nor the armies. He saw a throne, and One seated on it (Revelation 4:1–2). Everything else in heaven and on earth takes its meaning from that sight. This series is called The Sight of the Throne because I am convinced that the deepest need of the church — in my home country of Rwanda, across East Africa, and in the West where I have lived and served — is not first more activity for God, but a clearer sight of God. This first book carries a simple subtitle: to love God, you probably need to know Him. I say “probably” with a smile, because once you have seen it, it is not probable at all — it is certain. No one loves a stranger. A man does not burn with love for a wife he has never met; a child does not run to a father whose face he has never seen. Yet many of us have been taught to serve God, to obey God, to ask from God, and even to sacrifice for God, while knowing very little of God Himself. The result is a faith that is busy but shallow, loud but easily shaken. This book is an invitation to something better: to know Him, and in knowing Him, to love Him. GOD HAS SPOKEN Everything begins here. We could never have climbed up to God; our minds are too small and our hearts too clouded. But we do not need to climb, because God has come down. “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son” (Hebrews 1:1–2). The heavens declare His glory to every tribe and tongue without a single word (Psalm 19:1–4), so that no one is without a witness (Romans 1:19–20). And in the Scriptures and in Jesus Christ, He has told us His very heart. Theology — the knowledge of God — is not man’s invention. It is man’s response to a God who speaks first. That is why the first lesson of this study is called “He Has Spoken,” and why everything in this book stands on revelation rather than speculation. KNOWING, NOT KNOWING ABOUT There is a kind of knowledge that fills the head and leaves the heart cold. The demons have it, and they shudder (James 2:19). That is not the goal of this book. Jesus defined eternal life like this: “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3). And the Lord says through Jeremiah that the only boast worth making is this one: “that they have the understanding to know me” (Jeremiah 9:23–24). So in these chapters we will think carefully, because God gave us minds; but we will also pray, repent, sing, and obey, because the knowledge of God is not finished until it becomes love. WHO I WROTE THIS FOR I wrote this book for the pastor teaching under a tin roof who has never been given one day of formal training. I wrote it for the house group gathered quietly around one Bible and one phone. I wrote it for the believer in Canada or England whose shelves are full of books but whose soul is hungry. My own journey carried me from a village in Rwanda, through ten years in England, to Canada — and I have learned that material poverty and spiritual poverty are different diseases, but the same Physician heals both. Wherever you are reading from, this book asks of you only what it asks of everyone: a Bible, an open heart, and a willingness to seek His face (Psalm 27:8). HOW TO READ THIS BOOK Read slowly. One chapter at a time is enough; the chapters are short on purpose. Keep your Bible open beside this book and look up every passage — the Scriptures are the meal, and my words are only the plate. Pause at each Application and Reflection; they are there to move truth from the page into your week. If you are studying with the School of Service, read the assigned chapter before each lesson and bring your questions to the discussion. And if you can, do not read alone. Truth shared around a fire, a table, or a phone screen goes deeper than truth read in isolation. My prayer for you is the prayer of Moses: “Show me your glory” (Exodus 33:18). May the God who has spoken open the eyes of your heart (Ephesians 1:18), and may you rise from these pages able to say with Paul, not “I know about Him,” but “I know whom I have believed” (2 Timothy 1:12). Umushumba Fidele Bolton ---------- KGM School of Service — Knowing God Missions · Tumenyimana https://kgm-school-preview.netlify.app