Thoughts For Consideration

Greetings again my Brethren.  For the last few months we have been looking at the practical value of the knowledge of God, not the mental and emotional approaches we make, but the intimate and personal knowledge we have of God as we allow Him to seek us and know us.  In the Psalms David said, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: 24And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”  (Psalms 139:23)  We will only come to know God when He is able (our choice) to know us.  Oh He knows our form and frame He made us, but the knowing I am talking about is when we totally submit to His searching of our heart, a willful abandonment of our rights, privileges, and desires to know Him.  The knowing happens when we are tried, “try me,” and know my thoughts.” As we endure the trying of God we willfully open our heart and thoughts to Him to the point God is able to teach us the lessons we must learn to operate and function correctly with Him.  One area that manifests in our lives when God is trying us is our attitude.  Now make no mistake God is concerned about our attitude. Our attitude is always about how not what we do for God.  Never get stuck on doing things for God, they all will pass way, but what will not pass away is how we do things for God.  We are to do things for God in the right attitude. Now that is a real revelation to some Christians.  We think it is all about what we do, no my friend it is all about how we do things.  God gives greater honor to someone who changes a dirty, smelly diaper with the right attitude than one who holds a crusade for millions and 1000s are saved, but done with the wrong attitude.     
          There are four areas I would like to discuss when looking at God’s attitude toward this personal knowledge.  The first is God grieves over man’s lack of it.  In the Old Testament we read,  “Hear the word of the LORD, ye children of Israel: for the LORD hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. 2By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood.”  (Hosea 4:1-2)  Does this not sound like today? When we lack the knowledge of God we will turn our backs on God and go towards what we know.  Man today goes after technology and the knowledge man can produce.  My friend the more man goes after technology and man’s knowledge the less of God will be in man and his world.  In the New Testament we read,  “Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice, 8Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: 9When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. 10Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.”  (Hebrew 3:7-10) Here the writer to the Hebrews goes to the heart of the matter, our heart.  God said the Children of Isreal (their fathers) hardened their hearts so He was grieved with them.  Can you imagine God being grieved with someone?  How deceived and presumptuous someone is that an all knowing and loving God would be grieved. Now God was not grieved  because they were knuckle heads (like me at times) oh no God knows our thoughts and heart, but God was grieved because, “they do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.” This word “err” is not error to make a mistake, but to wilfully lead someone astray.  It is an intentional and calculated plan to deceive someone from the truth.  Something similar to what we see on Christian TV today. And because they “err” they knew not the ways of God.  This is why God said, “So I sware in my wrath, They shall not(strongest emphasis on importance) enter into my rest.)” (Hebrews 3:11) Please do not miss the point God was thinking these words to Himself. Notice the opening   parenthesis after the word “Wherefore” and then the closing parenthesis at the end of verse 11.  This makes these verse a parenthetical thought or a thought within a thought a very powerful tool to show character and nature of the speaker. They never entered into God’s rest, because they grieved God’s heart.  So too this can be our reward if we never come to know God and His ways.

The next area we are to increase in is God’s knowledge.  Or our increase in God is to come by way of His knowledge.  In Colossians Paul tells us, “For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 10That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;” (Colossians 1:9-10)  Our increase in God comes not by way of service and dedication to our church, but by “the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;” Verse 10 tells us how to be “all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work” by “increasing in the knowledge of God;” How can we be useful to God and do the things He wants us to do without possessing the knowledge of God?  It is impossible.  There is no way around it we must know God and His ways. Knowing feelings and emotions will not do. More next month on the remaining two areas of God’s attitude toward His knowledge.