Knowing God

I did not think that I would dive into things that were personally happening in my life, but this is one that I cannot fail to discuss. The premise of this blog is wisdom that flows supernaturally from a Holy God. Therefore it would lead one to logically conclude that you should know this God of whom we serve. Obviously my view of this subject begins and ends with his Holy Word and there is a passage in Genesis that I have to touch on. First off I have to tell you that yesterday was an unexpected setback and on the surface appears to be devastating. The background of this is that I am a father of three with a stay at home wife. I am currently unemployed and yesterday our only car’s engine blew! I have been in the Word of God more so then ever before in my life, which is the predominant reason for my writings. I will not usually plug a book, but I have been reading a book called “Knowing God” by J.I. Packer, and this book is worth the read and also correlates to my topic. Knowing all the attributes of God is the predominant theme of why I am compelled to share this with you and the only reason for my existence. That being said, I would be remiss if I told you that I am writing this with all the human emotions such as fear, frustration, and a touch of sorrow. My point is that my soul is not shaken, but yes my flesh is scared! However I am excited to know what is to come, because I have learned how my God operates which is to say not how we would think. This is not the first time this has happened in my life and it has escalated exponentially during the last 6 years of my life. I want to get into Genesis so I will not expound exhaustively on my personal testimony, but a little insight hopefully will help you out. I was an average church going Christian for about ten years after my salvation at age 20, but up until six years ago the Lord was not in control of my life, I was! Because of that I was an extremely miserable Christian and utterly fruitless! I thought I was doing the right things such as Sunday school, Bible studies, church sports and all the trappings of a “Christian life”, but I was lying to myself. Over the course of those years I grew tired of the grind I was living and my sin eventually took its toll. At the age of 30 I was separated from my wife, drinking heavily, totally depressed and wondering why. As a happy side note the children that I now have been blessed with are from my wife, we never got divorced and now have a great marriage! To make a long story short, six years ago I slumped back into the back row of a church on the first Sunday of 2005 and nothing has been the same since. Remember earlier I said that these trials have grown in the last six years, that’s right, as soon as I returned to the Lord he immediately rolled up and his sleeves and got busy getting rid of everything I had in my life that needed to be destroyed! Therefore the Lord has been preparing me with these faith lessons all along, and with that being said I want to share a passage about Abraham in Genesis chapter 22 it’s pretty long so I am only going to write a few verses here.
1And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.
2And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
3And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him.
4Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off.
5And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.
First of all I have only given you the first five verses and I invite you to read the rest of this chapter on your own. I will try to show to the best of my ability how amazing this story really is and how this is a call to faith for myself and every believer. The backdrop of this story is that Abraham has been residing in the land of the Philistines for a long time (it’s not clear to me how long that time was), after making a covenant with Abimelech. It is also worth noting that Abraham was not always the faithful man that we see here, the Lord had to create that in him. Although he did belief the Lord when it came to the promise that God would give his barren wife a natural son, he definitely had his missteps (chapter 20 he lied to Abimelech and told him that Sarah was his sister and not his wife because of fear for his own life.) I wanted to bring up that Abraham had been in the land of the Philistines for a long time to bring up the point that the Lord was taking that time to prepare Abraham for his lesson in faith that only God knew was coming. Not all that dissimilar to the last six years which have occurred in my life, were preparation for my particular faith lesson that I am going through. I think it’s important to grasp the humanity of Abraham with all his sin and disobedience so that we do not get caught in the trap of thinking that these huge steps of faith are reserved for “super saints” in the Bible. Yes Abraham was declared by God to have favor in the sight of God, but that is more about who God is; not who Abraham is. We need to realize that the faith that Abraham is showing us originated from the Lord and therefore is exactly what He is calling every believer into, not just the “super saints!” How did Abraham become willing to sacrifice his own son for the Lord? I know some people don’t want to get caught up in the details of this story because on the surface it seems so horrendous to think about, but let me give you a little different perspective. I want you to get the full picture here. Abraham was called out by God many years before this event happened. God promised Abraham that his barren wife would give birth to his seed (they were both about 100 I think, not completely sure but I know that number is close.) Moreover that son (Isaac) was to be the seed of God’s chosen people and would bless all the nations of the earth, including us gentile believers that have been grafted into that Jewish lineage as joint heirs to the throne. I don’t even think Abraham knew what God’s promise really meant, I know I could not have conceived of how much that promise actually meant. I’m still not sure I do, not this side of heaven anyway. Now here we are years later after the birth of Ishmael by his maidservant Hagar (clearly not what God had in mind), travelling through foreign lands and he still hasn’t seen the land to house this nation God has promised. Isaac has finally arrived and Abraham must think “Wow here we go; now things are starting to move!” Instead he ends up living with the Philistines, that’s right he is still not in his land! Finally Isaac has grown up and now God intervenes dramatically in Abraham’s life. Personally, I would have thought that the Lord was going to give clear concise three day directions to the land where his people will reside! Here comes the promise, I bet Abraham was excited to hear from the Lord! Well you just read what the Lord said. What would you have thought, I know I would have been distraught. There’s no doubt in my mind that Abraham’s human emotions were all tied up in knots. They had to be, faith or no faith this was his son, the promise, Isaac represented Abraham’s whole life. Isaac was everything God had promised and this is what God asks of him? I want to stop here and talk about how faith is not tied to emotional experiences. I would be a liar if I didn’t tell you that there have been some moments of fear and anxiety even as I write these words to you regarding my little situation. I have no doubt that Abraham felt the same way, after all Abraham was not God he was one of us frail unknowing humans. It’s not about what you feel that shows your faith it’s what you do. What did Abraham do? Verse 3 says that he “rose up early in the morning”. Early in the morning, are you serious! Most of us wouldn’t even do it let alone do it without delay! Let’s bring up one more point that the scripture tells us. The journey took three days. Abraham had three days to turn back. Three days to think about what he was about to do. Then to top it all off his beloved son had to ask where the sacrifice was to come from. As a father that had to have been a gut wrenching question from your son considering the circumstances. What was Abraham’s answer? “The Lord will provide” (it’s in verse 7, hey I told you to read the whole chapter I can’t do everything here!) What a statement! People this was not some emotion based modern day Holy Spirit moment here. No bands were playing, no people around for Abraham to seek counsel from, just Abraham, his son, the promise and God. Abraham believed God! How could this be? How could anyone have that kind of faith? The same reason that I can type these words to you. Because HE KNEW WHO GOD WAS, and no other reason. What does that mean, well everything to be honest, but I will try to keep this simple. Simply stated Abraham was in this for who God is not what He can do. You’re probably wondering what the difference is. Let’s say that you knew that a certain doctor can save your son from and incurable disease, because he had done it before. Would you care what his name was or what he was like. Frankly would you care anything about the doctor or would you run to him so that your son could be saved. Well, of course you would have the doctor save your son as I would for any of my daughters. That is a crude example but the truth is everyone (yes even you Mr. Atheist!) knows intellectually what a Holy God is capable of and would love the results He can give, but not all those people love the God over the results. Therein lies the difference between Abraham’s saving faith and the mirage of faith that some have and that I used to have. Who wouldn’t want God’s salvation, but when you realize that He wants your submission people turn away. (By the way, all will turn away no one would get saved without the original prompting of the Holy Spirit; you don’t desire God He desires you. That being said when the Holy Spirit does His work it will produce a repentant and submissive heart. Just thought it was important to add that little disclaimer on salvation.) Some of you are reading this and not understanding that Knowing God and eternity with Him is more important than the earthly results He can give. Some of you may not be saved (if that is you repenting now would be prudent!) and some of you may just not understand that yet. That’s ok I am just beginning to understand and will probably look back on this entry years from now and see how little I know now, but therein is the beauty of knowing God, the journey never ends. Abraham had learned the attributes of this God he serves and the knowledge of those truths made everything else insignificant. Even just one of them if fully understood can be enough to sustain you, He is that great! Abraham knew that God was sovereign, He was not a liar, that He was loving, and many more and if we know these things as well we will be changed forever and permanently. When you stop expecting the results that you want from Him God becomes the God of your life and not a genie. My point is that no amount of human effort could ever produce the kind of faith that Abraham exhibited as a matter of fact nothing at all from a human perspective could ever be the power source for that faith. That leads me to some unmistakable conclusions. Number one if that faith is God originated and Abraham (a regular guy) received and grabbed a hold of it then it is available. Number two since I can’t attain it, that faith is therefore supernatural thus making it eternal and permanent, and lastly if God calls us to seek Him through His word that means that this Bible we read is God and therefore containing the power available to sustain that faith. There is no expectation of results just God and how much you get to know Him.
I am not writing this because I am a “super saint” because I am not. I am just like you weak, frail, sinful and undeserving of His grace. I am not being overly humble to overstate anything, I believe that I am at my core all of those things. If it were not for supernatural grace that caused me to be a different person I would still be sinful. At that admission lays my last point and the only thing that you do in this process. All that you do is acknowledge your total human depravity and realize that you are not worthy of Him, that’s salvation and it will produce obedience over time as God gets rid of all of you and shows you Him. You cannot receive the gift of salvation spoken about in Ephesians 2:8-9 if you don’t think you need it. This brings me to my last point. Knowing Him is predicated on the realization that you don’t want to know your sinfulness anymore. Moreover when your self reliance and talents, coupled with your desires still lead to nothing and you cry out for a God knowing you don’t deserve him to answer. Then and only then are you in the frame of mind to know Him. Salvation is an act and gift of God and is permanent; however the realization of all that it means takes time. I am not trying to show you a miserable life in Christ, far from it. I am more grateful now then I ever was when I had more things of this world. I am also not saying that I have taken a vow of poverty, because I haven’t. (Although some days I think I have and don’t know it!) What I am driving at is your motivations for why you do the things you do. The world may not care, but God does. If you heart is where the Lord wants it then you have the rest talked about in Matthew chapter 11(I am not telling you which verses just read the whole thing it won’t kill you trust me!) and life is beautiful. So I would like to encourage those that might be a little taken aback by these statements. Sanctification is a beautiful process and God will finish his work so hang in there your Abraham faith lesson is coming and if you stay obedient you will be ready, God bless.