Knowledge vs Knowing, part 2
Are you known by God?
In
verse 3, Paul concludes:
“But the man who loves God is known by God.” This is knowledge vs knowing. If we love God, that’s all we need because then God knows us! We won’t get to heaven based on what we know about God, but whether or not God knows us.
In Matthew 7 the false prophets came to Jesus and said, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast our demons in your name and do many miracles?” Jesus looks at them and says, “Depart from Me. I never knew you.” It didn’t matter what they knew or what they did; the only thing that mattered was whether or not Jesus knew them.
Can you, can anyone, cast out demons and do miracles without really loving God? Certainly, you can do those things for self-glory, which is just the opposite of loving God. The person who loves God is known by God. It’s much better to be known by God than to merely have knowledge of God. Mere knowledge won’t get you into heaven, but being known by God will and that comes down to love.
I really want to key back into verse three which said,
“the man who loves God is known by God.” That is the key in coming back into childlike faith and literally having a carefree attitude about the pressures of life – not a careless attitude, but a carefree one, which is quite different. Careless means you don’t care, but the ability to be carefree comes from knowing that someone much more capable than you is running the show.
Back in 2000, the book,
When He Appears, by Ron Auch, was published. This book is built around the Song of Solomon and deals a lot with intimacy with the Lord. In it, Pastor Ron describes the process the bride went through to get to a place of full dependency upon her groom. Using that book as a backdrop, I’m going to take us through that process because it’s so important for us to understand.
In the Song of Songs (Song of Solomon), as the groom was taking the bride through the process of abandonment or complete possession, she stated where she was at in this process three different times. Wade Taylor calls this her “three statements of position.”
Position One
Her first position is seen in Song of Solomon 2:16 “My beloved is mine, and I am his.” This really is an expression of immaturity. She had herself before Him. She said, “He is mine!” It is not uncharacteristic for a person to begin their relationship with Jesus from this position. When people first meet Jesus, they are called “babes,” babes in Christ.
A while back, I preached from 1 Corinthians 3:1 which says, “And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to babes in Christ.
Continued tomorrow
