Knowing God

Some time ago I was laying before the Lord in meditation and preparation for an area meeting we were going to hold later that evening in South Plainfield, NJ. During this time a couple of portions of Scripture from the book of Isaiah seemed to jump out of my Bible at me! I spent the next hour or so just meditating on them and some thoughts began to develop. That night at the area meeting, I gave about a thirty-minute exhortation off the cuff based on what I had been meditating on earlier that afternoon. I want to share some of those thoughts with you.

“’You are My witnesses,’ declares the Lord, ‘And My servant whom I have chosen, In order that you may KNOW and BELIEVE Me, And UNDERSTAND that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, And there will be none after Me. I, even I, am the Lord; And there is no savior besides Me. It is I who have declared and saved and proclaimed, And there was no strange god among you; So you are My witnesses,’ declares the Lord, ‘And I am God. Even from eternity I am He; And there is none who can deliver out of My hand; I act and who can reverse it?’” Isaiah 43:10-13 NASB (emphasis mine)

The first thought that I had while meditating on this Scripture was how awesome God is! We serve a truly sovereign God. I think if there is one truth that we don’t hear enough teaching on today in our churches it would have to be the sovereignty of God. Look at what God said: “I, even I, am the Lord; And there is no savior besides Me.” I really like what He said in verse 13: “I act and who can reverse it?” What an awesome God we serve! Isaiah 46 also bears out this same thought of the sovereignty and awesomeness of our God. “’…For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’…’Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, surely I will do it.’” Isaiah 46:9-11 NASB No wonder we sing the song today in many of our churches, “Who Is Like The Lord?”

We could spend the rest of this blog talking about our awesome God, but I really want to focus on the three words in our first text that are printed totally in large case and bold:

KNOW, BELIEVE & UNDERSTAND. It stood out to me that according to our text, God has chosen us to be His servants and witnesses, and what will make us the witness is the fact that we know, believe and understand Him. It should not surprise us that He called us His witnesses for Jesus did the same in Acts 1:8, speaking of our life after the empowerment of The Holy Spirit. I began to see things all being intertwined together in these verses and being dependent one upon the other and in progressive order.

It all begins with our knowing God. I believe many in the church, even though they are legitimately saved, really don’t know God. God has chosen us to know Him. When we know Him, it will be a witness. If we don’t know Him, we will have a hard time believing Him, and for sure we won’t understand Him. Yet these verses say: know, believe & understand. The first thing we need to know is that our God is sovereign. Again as I have already stated, there is a great shortage of revelation in the Body of Christ today regarding this elementary but important doctrine.

I can hear many of you thinking, how can he make a statement like being legitimately saved and not knowing God. Let me explain. If you were to get introduced to the President of the United States, would you really know him? The honest truth would be that you were introduced to him, you met him, but you really don’t know him. So it is with God, when you got saved, you were introduced to Him, you met Him, but you really don’t know Him. The only way you can get to know anybody is by spending time with him or her. God is no different. We spend time with God by reading His Word and spending time in prayer, or as my Dad used to say: “Keep your nose in the ‘book’ and your knees on the floor.”

Without spending time with God we will not know God. Some believe that going to church makes them know God. Watching the news on TV or reading the newspaper about the President makes you know about him, but you still don’t really know him. By going to church and listening we learn about God, but unless we personally enter into worship and communion with Him, we still don’t know Him.

Because many of us really don’t know God, many of us have a hard time believing God. God was declaring through the Prophet Isaiah Who He is, what His character is, so that we would know what He is like, and know Him. God knows that when we get a revelation of how awesome He is we will not have a problem taking Him at His word and believing that He will do what He said He will do. But until we know Him, we find ourselves wondering, will God really do what His word says He will do. I know none of us wants to admit that we have operated in unbelief. We all want everyone to think that we are the most super-spiritual, all faith possessing Christians that have ever walked the face of the earth. However, just take inventory and be honest and I am sure that you will admit like I had to, I need improvement at taking God at His word. It starts with knowing Him.

Now we are hit with a really big challenge. God said in the same book of Isaiah: “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:9 NASB If that is true, and it is, how can God say in our text that we should understand Him? First realize that God never says we can do something if we can’t. Remember I said that everything in these verses was intertwined and in progressive order, hinged on the fact that we should know God. If we don’t know Him, we will never believe Him, and if we don't believe Him we will never understand Him, because His ways are higher than ours.

Paul said: “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” 1 Corinthians 2:14 NKJV Too many of us try to discern the things of God naturally instead of spiritually and cannot discern them. If we knew God not just about Him, or were just introduced to Him, we would see things His way. We would see with spiritual eyes, not natural eyes, and we would understand Him. How often have you heard Christians ask: ”How could God do that?” or “How could that be?” Perhaps you have asked those or similar questions yourself. When you truly know Him, those types of questions diminish because you gain understanding of Him.

The simple truth is when you know Him you have no trouble believing Him, and when you believe Him you can then move on to understanding Him.

My purpose for writing this blog is to stir you up to know God better than you do; To spend more time with Him, in prayer, worship, communion, meditation and in His Word. As a result you will be a witness because you will KNOW BELIEVE & UNDERSTAND Him!

Arresting The Attention Of Jesus

Have you ever felt like: “If only I could get God’s attention?” “If only Jesus was paying attention to me?” I have been meditating along this line quite a bit lately. There are several people in the Gospels that had success getting Jesus’ attention. I believe that we can learn a great deal from their examples. We could speak of Zaccheus, the tax collector, blind Bartimaeus, and Mary Magdalene. All of them had personal encounters with Jesus because they arrested his attention. From looking at their stories in Scripture it appears that there are a couple of ingredients to arresting Jesus’ attention that aren’t always present in the body of Christ today like they should be. It seems that Jesus responds very well to hunger, desperation and worship.

There is no way that we can deal with all of these thoughts in a short Blog like this. However, in keeping with the theme of some of the other Blogs we have written and our focus of speaking what we believe to be the “NOW” or “RHEMA” word from God we are going to stress the aspect of worship from Mary’s life.

The life of Mary is portrayed in the Gospel accounts as one of humility and worship. She was the one in Luke chapter 7 who came into the Pharisees’ house and washed the feet of Jesus with her tears and dried them with her hair. She kissed his feet and anointed them with perfume. Perfume speaks of the fragrant aroma of worship. When Mary let down her hair to dry the feet of Jesus, it was symbolic of letting down or despising your own glory for His. What we fail to realize is that Scripture teaches that a woman’s hair is a glory to her. But she considered the glory of Jesus of much more value than her own. How many of us could say that?

When we see Mary a little later in Matthew chapter 26 & Mark chapter 14, we find her coming to anoint Jesus again with costly perfume. Again the perfume is a symbolic picture of pure worship, which has a sweet aroma to Jesus.

“For when she poured this perfume upon My body, she did it to prepare Me for burial. Truly I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done shall also be spoken of in memory of her.” Matthew 26:12 & 13 New American Standard Bible

This is the second time she worshipped Jesus by anointing him with costly perfume. Notice Jesus said that whenever the Gospel is preached her worship will be remembered. God doesn’t always stand up and take notice of the things that we think He will, but He always pays attention to worship and worshippers. Remember Jesus said:

“But a time is coming, and it is already here! Even now the true worshippers are being led by the Spirit to worship the Father according to the truth. These are the ones the Father is seeking to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship God must be led by the Spirit to worship Him according to the truth.” John 4:23 & 24 Contemporary English Version

In Mark chapter 16 we see Mary once again with spices to anoint the dead body of Jesus as an act of worship, not knowing that He had risen. In John chapter 20 we find to me one of the most amazing encounters in all of Scripture. Mary is standing outside the empty tomb weeping because the body of Jesus had been moved so she thought, and did not get to anoint it. Jesus was on His way to the Father to sprinkle His blood on the heavenly mercy seat to seal the full payment of our redemption, when He heard the familiar cry of a woman with a proven track record of being a worshipper and an anointer.

“Jesus saith unto her, ’Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father…” John 20:17a King James Version

Notice He told her not to touch Him, which means she was close enough to Him that she could have. However, He hadn’t ascended to the Father yet. Just meditate for a moment on the fact that Jesus allowed Himself to pause in the eternal purpose of God, (sprinkling his blood on the heavenly mercy seat), all because of the cry of a worshipper. As the Psalms say “Selah” pause and think about that.

We have not fully understood the importance of worship in the body of Christ. However in this day, God is raising up many voices all throughout the different “camps” or “circles” of the church that are speaking of the importance of worship. Over and over again Jesus said that those who had ears to hear should hear what the Spirit was saying to the church. (See Revelation chapters 2 & 3) Do you have ears to hear what the Spirit of God is speaking to the church today? You can arrest the attention of Jesus! You can make Jesus take notice of you! Not by doing miracles, but by being a true worshipper that worships in Spirit and truth.

Where Are We Now

It is always important to understand where we are in God’s time and season. We don’t want to be like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day that could not discern the signs of the times. (Matthew 16:3) Instead we want to be like the sons of Issachar, who were men who understood the times. (1 Chronicles 12:32) So, where are we right now in God’s timetable? If we look to the Scriptures, we can find the answer.

 

“He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day that we may live before Him. So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord. His going forth is certain as the dawn; and He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain watering the earth.” Hosea 6:2 & 3 NASB

 

These two verses give us a clear picture of where we are in God’s timing and what we should be experiencing. I think most people in the Body of Christ understand Peter’s explanation of God’s timing in 2 Peter 3:8: 1000 years = 1 day, 1 day = 1000 years. It has been 2000 years since Jesus’ earthly ministry, or 2 days since Jesus walked the earth, so what happens now? I see four things: He Will Revive Us, He Will Raise Us, He Will Reveal To Us and He Will Refresh Us. Let us consider them briefly one at a time.

 

First, HE WILL REVIVE US. Notice in our text that He will revive us, not the world, us (His people). Notice also that this will take place after two days, or 2000 years. The people of God are about to walk into the greatest revival that they have ever experienced! Most folks in the church don’t understand revival; they seem to think that revival is when people get saved, however that is evangelism and conversion, which are offshoots of a true revival. Let us look to the definitions of the word revival for a better understanding. Revival means: To come or bring back to LIFE or consciousness, resuscitate. Its second definition is: To come or bring back to a healthy, vigorous, or flourishing condition after A DECLINE. Isn’t that a picture of the church today? God is about to bring us back to a healthy, vigorous and flourishing condition! We are no longer going to be sleep walking, going through the motions of our Christian lives! It is time to sing with the great hymn writer: “Revive Us Again”!

 

Second, HE WILL RAISE US. Notice in our text that on the third day He will raise us up that we may live before Him. I want to focus on the two words, raise and live in this verse. At first glance, you would think that God will elevate us on the third day (or the beginning of the 3000^th year according to Peter’s equation), which would be good, but a deeper look at the original Hebrew reveals quite a bit more. This word raise carries with it the added meanings of: CONFIRMING, ORDAINING & ESTABLISHING.

 

Notice also that the text says that the reason that He will raise us is so that we may live before Him. There is an intended purpose to this raising. A deeper look at the meaning of this Hebrew word for live carries the added meaning of: NOURISHING, SAVING & BEING WHOLE. Therefore we could say that on the third day (which is the day we are living in), that God will CONFIRM, ORDAIN & ESTABLISH us that we may be NOURISHED, SAVED & WHOLE before Him!

 

Third, HE WILL REVEAL TO US. Notice the words of our text, so let us know, let us press on to know the Lord. This speaks of revelation. A closer look at this word know in the Hebrew carries with it the meanings of: PERCEIVING, HAVING REVELATION & BEING SHOWN. We are living today in the day that the people of God are going to walk in the greatest revelation that any people of God have ever walked in throughout all of human history simply because of where we are in God’s timetable! God wants us to know: WHO HE IS, HOW HE THINKS, WHAT HE FEELS & HOW HE WORKS. This revelation will come to us one of three primary ways: The Spirit of God will open the eyes of our understanding as we spend time in His Word, The Spirit of God will speak to, give images to, or make impressions on our hearts during prayer, praise and worship, and finally the Spirit of God will manifest His gifts in our midst and speak to us prophetically as we are open to His moving amongst us.

 

Finally, HE WILL REFRESH US. Notice in our text He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain. Rain in Scripture is a symbol for the refreshing that comes from the manifest presence of the Lord (see Acts 3:19). The prophet stresses that on the third day God will come to us not just as the rain, but as the SPRING RAIN. This is a key phrase in Scripture. In studying the rain of the Holy Spirit in Joel chapter 2, the footnotes of my New American Standard Bible make mention of the fact that the Early Rain = the Autumn Rain, while the Later Rain = the Spring Rain. The early rain came at planting time, the spring rain comes at harvest time to get the crop to a place of maturity, and ready to be harvested.

 

There are going to be two great coming harvests. The first is the last day great harvest of souls into the Kingdom of God. The second is the harvest of God’s people being caught away (The Rapture Of The Church). Jesus is coming for a spotless bride that is mature and ready to meet Him when He comes. It will take the last day outpouring of the Spring Rain to get this crop of the church to come to a place of maturity ready to be harvested. I can remember all the books written about the Second Coming (like 88 reasons Jesus was coming in 1988). Obviously the church was not ready, because the third day outpouring of the Spring Rain had not yet come to bring her to that place of maturity, ready to meet Him. We are living in the day of that outpouring! Get ready for it!

 

It is clear from these two verses of Scripture that God has some specific things in mind for His people of the THIRD DAY CHURCH. It is up to us to recognize what His purpose is and place a demand on the purpose of God. It is up to us whether we walk in the fullness of what His purpose is or not. As for me, I will experience HIS REVIVING, HIS RAISING, HIS REVEALING & HIS REFRESHING! How about you?