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Knowing the truth about God is essential. However, in addition to knowing the truth about God, we need to develop and then maintain a close, personal, intimate relationship with the living God. We need to walk with God, live with God, moment by moment.

We do that by focusing our mind on Him throughout the day.

We do that in various ways, like:

Reading the Bible in the morning and thinking about it during the day.

Praying without ceasing: talking to the Lord throughout the day, letting Him know the things that interest us and the things that concern us.

Having times of silence and solitude. When we are still, our thoughts are drawn to God and we can hear His still small voice speaking to us.

Listening to good music.

Seeing good art.

Another way to focus our thoughts on God is by observing the things He created. They reveal that the Lord is very great, very wise, very powerful, very honorable, very majestic, very worthy of our praise.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, or, let all that I am praise the Lord! O Lord my God, how great you are! You are robed with honor and majesty. You are dressed in a robe of light.

Like a king wears a beautiful robe, which enhances His honor and majesty, the Lord is amazingly honorable and majestic. Glorious light surrounds Him – which expresses His divinity and glory and greatness.

Ezekiel was blessed with a vision of God. He recorded this: On this throne high above was a figure whose appearance resembled a man. From what appeared to be his waist up, he looked like gleaming amber, flickering like a fire. And from his waist down, he looked like a burning flame, shining with splendor. All around him was a glowing halo, like a rainbow shining in the clouds on a rainy day. This is what the glory of the Lord looked like to me.

John was blessed with a vision of God. He recorded this: I saw a throne in heaven and someone sitting on it. The one sitting on the throne was as brilliant as gemstones – like jasper and carnelian. And the glow of an emerald circled his throne like a rainbow.

The One who is robed with honor and majesty and dressed in a robe of light is the great and powerful and wise and intelligent designer of all things. You stretch out the heavens like a tent curtain. Like a man sets up a tent to provide shelter for his family, the Lord made the universe for the sun, moon, planets and stars to exist in. How many stars? The latest estimate is that there are 100 billion galaxies, maybe 200 billion, maybe a lot more; and the average galaxy has 100 billion stars. That’s a lot of stars – more stars than grains of sand in all of the world’s beaches and deserts.

When we observe the heavens, we know that the Lord is much greater than anyone who has ever set up a tent, and our thoughts are drawn to Him and we praise Him.

You lay out the rafters of your home on the waters. Like a man builds a home on Earth, the Lord built a much greater home in Heaven, which is above “the waters above.” How big is His home? If His home is the same as the New Jerusalem, which will descend from Heaven to the new Earth – and I think it is – it’s 1500 miles by 1500 miles by 1500 miles – about the size of the moon. That’s big – very very big. Big enough for all of the millions of God’s children to live in. No wonder why the Son of God said: In my Father’s home are many dwelling places.

You make the clouds your chariot; you ride upon the wings of the wind. The winds are your messengers. When this was written, a horse-drawn chariot was one of the fastest modes of transportation. However, the Lord is able to travel much faster. It’s like He’s able to tame the clouds and winds and ride on them.

No human being can tame the clouds and winds. No human being can control lightening – but the Lord can. Flames of fire are your servants.

Last week a storm passed over my house. I saw lightening strike a few houses away. Boom! It shook the house. It took out the power in the neighborhood. That flame of fire was loud, powerful, frightening.

So, when we observe the clouds, winds, storms and lightening, our thoughts are drawn to the One who made them and we praise Him.

Which reminds me of this incident recorded in Mark 4: As evening came, Yeshua said to his disciples, “Let’s cross to the other side of the lake.” So they took Yeshua in the boat and started out, leaving the crowds behind (although other boats followed). But soon a fierce storm came up. High waves were breaking into the boat, and it began to fill with water. Yeshua was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, “Rabbi, don’t you care that we’re going to drown? When Yeshua woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Silence! Be still!” Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm. Then he asked them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?” The disciples were absolutely terrified. “Who is this man?” they asked each other. “Even the wind and waves obey him!”

You placed the world on its foundation so it would never be moved. Like a builder who makes a good foundation so the structure on it is stable, the Lord made this huge planet so that it is very stable.

Imagine you’re on a merry-go-round and someone is spinning it. You feel the centrifugal force at work. The Earth is rotating much faster – at 1000 miles per hour. That’s very fast. And yet we can’t feel the centrifugal force or the slightest vibration.

The Earth is orbiting our sun at 67,000 miles per hour. That’s very, very fast. The Earth orbits the sun with its massive gravitational force in an almost perfect circle. The Earth doesn’t get drawn into the sun so that it’s incinerated, or move farther from the sun so that everything freezes. Massive gravitational force is involved in the Earth’s orbit around the sun – and we don’t feel the slightest thing.

As we consider the stability of this huge planet, our thoughts are drawn to the One who made it, who is so much greater than the greatest builder who built a structure with a good foundation, and we praise Him.

For a planet to sustain life as we know it, it must have water in liquid form – lots of water. None of the other planets or moons in our solar system have abundant, liquid water. Not surprisingly, when God created the Earth, He created it with abundant, liquid water. In fact, in the beginning, the Earth was entirely covered by water. Then God separated the land from the water.

You clothed the earth with floods of water, water that covered even the mountains. At your command, the water fled; at the sound of your thunder, it hurried away. Mountains rose and valleys sank to the levels you decreed. Then you set a firm boundary for the seas, so they would never again cover the earth.

Water is an amazing substance. It’s essential to plant and animal life. It helps erode rock and turn it into life-producing soil. We use water for cleaning, cooking, heating and putting out fires. Water contains chemicals and minerals absorbed from the air and land. Rivers carry these chemicals and minerals into the oceans that help sustain the living things in the oceans. Running water can generate electricity to light and heat our homes and power our machines. Water supports the ships that transport much of the world’s goods around the Earth. And water has other amazing properties – too many to describe now.

When we think about abundant liquid water – our mind is drawn to the one who made this amazing substance, and we praise Him.

The Lord made the water cycle, without which the amazing abundance of life couldn’t exist. You make springs pour water into the ravines, so streams gush down from the mountains. They provide water for all the animals, and the wild donkeys quench their thirst. The birds nest beside the streams and sing among the branches of the trees. You send rain on the mountains from your heavenly home, and you fill the earth with the fruit of your labor.

Like a man who lives in a home and waters his garden, the Lord, who lives in His much greater heavenly home, waters the Earth. And He does so to much greater extent and in a much more efficient way.

The oceans, which contain vast amounts of undrinkable salt water, through evaporation of the water and transportation of the water through the atmosphere, followed by precipitation, provide abundant fresh water for all the animals and plants on the land.

When we observe the Lord’s watering system, which is so much greater and more efficient than any watering system created by man, our mind is drawn to Him and we praise Him.

The result of the Lord’s watering system is a planet filled with plants and animals that sustain people and make their lives more enjoyable. You cause grass to grow for the livestock and plants for people to use. You allow them to produce food from the earth – wine to make them glad, olive oil to soothe their skin, and bread to give them strength.

The Lord created grass for livestock to eat and plants for people to use. How many kinds of plants are there? We think there are about 390,000. That’s a lot of plants. When we see a beautiful or useful plant, let’s think about the One who made it – and praise Him.

Trees are amazing and beneficial for people and animals and plants. They turn carbon dioxide into oxygen. They provide shade. They provide wood. They provide food. They provide a habitat for plants and animals. The trees of the Lord are well cared for – the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. There the birds make their nests, and the storks make their homes in the cypresses.

The trees of the Lord are well cared for. Trees belong to God. He made them. Only God can make a tree. How many species of trees are there? 60,000 – an amazing variety. When we see a particularly beautiful or useful tree, let’s think about the One who made that tree, and praise Him.

God made an amazing variety of animals that live in an amazing variety of environments. High in the mountains live the wild goats, and the rocks form a refuge for the hyraxes – rodent-like animals about the size of a groundhog.

How many kinds of animals did God create? At least a million. When we observe the animals that the Lord designed, and the many different environments in which they live, let’s think about the One who made them all and praise Him.

The Lord made the sun and moon – which are themselves amazing. They serve many purposes, two of which are highlighted. You made the moon to mark the seasons. The tilt of the Earth on its axis around the sun creates the four seasons. The orbit of the moon around the Earth determines the months, and the months are connected to the seasons.

The daily rotation of the Earth creates day and night. Day and night are designed by God to organize the activities of people and animals. And the sun knows when to set. You send the darkness, and it becomes night, when all the forest animals prowl about. Then the young lions roar for their prey, stalking the food provided by God. At dawn they slink back into their dens to rest. Then people go off to their work, where they labor until evening. So, when we observe the sun and the moon, and consider the seasons, and day and night and how they regulate life on Earth, our mind is drawn to the great and wise Creator – and we praise Him.

O Lord, what a variety of things you have made! In wisdom you have made them all. The earth is full of your creatures. How full is the Earth of the Lord’s creatures? There are millions of species of living things, which interact with the plants and with each other to sustain each other. The work of an amazingly Wise Designer is clearly seen by the variety and complexity and interactivity of the things that have been made.

The Earth’s land area is huge and full of life. The oceans are bigger and have more life. Here is the ocean, vast and wide, teeming with life of every kind, both large and small. How many kinds of fish live in the oceans? Around 28,000. How many kinds of animals live in the oceans? 225,000 that we know of, and possibly a million or more we don’t know of.

The oceans not only have an abundance of life, they make transportation by ship possible. See the ships sailing along, and Leviathan, which you made to play in the sea.

One of the things I want to do before I die is take a voyage on the ocean – not on a huge cruise ship for a week, but on a small ship and on a much longer voyage. I want to really experience traveling on the ocean. If I did, I know I would be praising the One who make the seas and has given us the ability to make ships travel on them.

One animal singled out for mention: Leviathan – a very large dinosaur-like creature that was alive when this was written. By the way, over the centuries and including recent times, there have been reports of very large, dinosaur-like sea-creatures.

Taking care of one animal, like a dog, including feeding it, can take a lot of work. There are at least a million species of animals and billions of animals on Earth. The Lord provides food for them all. They all depend on you to give them food as they need it. When you supply it, they gather it. You open your hand to feed them, and they are richly satisfied. When we consider all of the food that God has provided to feed all creatures on this planet, let’s think about God and praise Him.

However, there are times when conditions for life are difficult. But if you turn away from them, they panic. When you take away their breath, they die and turn again to dust. There are times of drought or sickness or extreme cold or heat – like the West Coast has been experiencing – when people, sea-creatures, animals and plants die suddenly.

And there are times when conditions are good and life is renewed. When you give them your breath, life is created, and you renew the face of the earth.

When we consider the cycles of abundance and deprivation, and life and death for people, animals and plants, we think about the One who is control of those cycles and we praise Him.

The more we learn about the Lord’s creation, the more we understand how glorious He is, and we praise Him, and want ourselves and others to please Him. May the glory of the Lord continue forever! The Lord takes pleasure in all he has made!

The more we learn about the Lord and His creation, the better we understand how awesome He is – which produces reverence for Him. The earth trembles at his glance; the mountains smoke at his touch.

The more we know about the Lord and His creation, the more we will want to praise Him. I will sing to the Lord as long as I live. I will praise my God to my last breath!

The more we learn about the Lord and His creation, the more we want to please Him, and the more joy we will have. May all my thoughts be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord.

The more we learn about the Lord and His creation, the more we want anything evil, anything that opposes the great and holy God, eliminated. Let all sinners vanish from the face of the earth; let the wicked disappear forever.

The more we know about the Lord and His creation, the more we will want to praise Him. Let all that I am praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!

This season of summer, slow down. Take time to observe and consider the amazing universe around you, and let your thoughts be drawn to God, and praise Him. That will help you maintain a close, personal, intimate relationship with the living God – which is the way we need to live.