Knowing God 06/29/2011
 
As a child I was curious. I always wanted to be the one with the information no one else had.  I wanted know more than anyone about any given subject.  I did extra credit history reports in 6thgrade, just so I wouldn’t be bored in class. I read my science text book in English class because science was a more factual study than was grammar.  In 8th grade I discovered ‘Ripley’s Believe it or Not’ and ‘Guinness World Records’.  These were life changing because now I also had useless information that none of my friends had.  I began memorizing a list of interesting facts so that at any given time I could produce tidbits of info to wow my friends, like how often the average person picks their nose, or how much faster a cheetah can run than a bee can fly. I had a thirst for knowledge that was described by my mother as unquenchable.  I have since toned down the useless info craze in my life, but the desire to be knowledgeable in as many areas as possible has not left.  That desire has especially been true in that last few years in the area of trends within Christianity. We are a curious people and God has created us that way.  The Bible tells us that God has revealed himself to us in nature and within our conscience (Romans 1:19-21; Romans 2:14-15). We know that there is a God.  What God desires of us is that we would know Him.  Nature and our conscience tell us that there is a God but the Bible tells us who God is and what He has done for us.  We must first know God as our Savior.  We must confess our sins and believe that Jesus died on the cross as the substitutionary payment for our sins to satisfy the just wrath of God against man as sinner (Romans 5:8-9). Once we know God as savior we can begin to grow in the knowledge of God.  There are many who would say that they know God because they can recite facts about God; He is love, He is all powerful, He is everywhere all the time, He created the world.  That type of knowledge is necessary, but is not an evidence that we really know God.  The Bible says that those who have never trusted Jesus Christ to save them from their sins are still carnally minded and as such cannot understand the spiritual things contained in scripture concerning who God is and what His nature and character teach us about Him.We know we are naturally curious about the God we see revealed in nature and our conscience so the question then is why do we need to have a knowledge of God.  The first reason is so that we can better understand how God works in the course of human history.  In that knowledge we are better able to appreciate what he has done for us and offer him praise for what he has done in our lives. The second reason is so that as those who have come to know God as our personal Savior, we might be able to identify error in teaching within the broad realm of Christianity.  The apostle Peter warned in II Peter that the church would continually face false teachers who would enter the churches as ones who seem to have an understanding and knowledge of God’s Word, but are really just teaching “swelling words of vanity” in order to satisfy their own greed or sinful desires of the flesh. Just like identifying counterfeit money, we cannot identify error if we do not know what the truth looks and sounds like.  The true knowledge of God is found within His own Word the Bible. Everything that you hear from the pulpit, or the radio, see on tv, or read in print should be compared to what the word of God says. An understanding of God and His word reveal that no portion of scripture when properly viewed in context will ever disagree or contradict any other portion of scripture.  And just like any other text in human history mankind has become skilled at skewing the meaning of a Biblical text in order to satisfy his own desires or preconceived notions about God.  II Peter 3:16-18 says, “There are some things in them [the Scriptures] that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.  17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability.  18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”In our curiousness over God and in our desire to know Him more thoroughly as our Savior, the Bible must be our sole authority concerning who God is, what He has done, and how He interacts with mankind.
 


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