INTENTIONAL FOCUS ON KNOWING GOD
To Know God this is to be our main focus of life. When Jesus says follow me, it is not about trying to do what He does. It is having Him live in us and do what we cannot do. Submission and obedience to God must come from a new birth, a spiritual birth. Knowing someone does not end when you meet a person. To know means you have a daily relationship in which care about the other and are intimate with the other. Your being with them in all times is a relationship. What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” (A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy). In Ecclesiastes 3:11, we read that God has put eternity into our hearts. He has made everything [a]appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, [b]yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.
God wants us to focus on knowing Him in this life. He wants us to throw off every "idol" of the heart" so we can know Him. The thing or person we end up focusing on more than God is our idol. If we tracked our thoughts and time like some track money spent, we may see that God takes up really little time in our thoughts and times. We can't intentionally focus on God if our mind and heart is already filled with other things that take up residence. What are idols that take up residence in our hearts and minds?
IDOLS OF OUR MINDS AND HEARTS
I remember one day lying down with my son when he was about 3 1/2 -4 and he said "they have mouths but they can't talk, they have eyes but they can't see and they have ears and they can't hear." He remember the idols of the Old Testament and he remembered a verse from Isaiah that at first I did not remember. God had connected understanding and wisdom in his heart. My son says he is a missionary and he is. Wherever he goes, he asks people "Do you know Jesus?" and the second thing he says is "Worship Him. He is God. Obey Him. Turn from idols." If we are intimate with "idols" then that is who we become. We imitate who/what takes up our time, thoughts, energy. We can have a relationship with many useless things. God has a lot to say all throughout the Bible about idols (from all the stories of the Old Testament following up to teachings in the New Testament). The verse my son remembered about idols is:
Psalm 115: 3 says "But our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases. Their idols are silver and gold, The work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they do not speak;Eyes they have, but they do not see; They have ears, but they do not hear; They have Noses they have, but they do not smell;They have hands, but they do not handle; Feet they have, but they do not walk;Nor do they mutter through their throat. Those who make them are like them;So is everyone who trusts in them."
The last part of Psalm 115:3 grabbed my attention "THOSE WHO MAKE THEM ARE LIKE THEM." You may have heard we become like what/who we worship. We become imitators of our idols rather than The Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Idols are therefore anything that we think of more than God, even good things like good friends, good service projects, husbands, children, helping others, providing good, nutritious food to our families, staying healthy. I want to be an imitator of Jesus not any idols. In the Old Testament, people set up wooded objects or objects they made with their hands. Today, our idols may look like we know Jesus and not be following law something like donating money, doing good, lighting a candle and saying a prayer. All these things done in order to be like Jesus may just be our own ideas of "our own god".
It is important for us to ask God to show us any idols living in our minds and hearts. Ask for spiritual sight to not live a life of complacency. After God shows us, we need to lay them down. We can't worship who we do not personally know. Worshipping a "god" of our minds is not worshipping the one and only King. It is worshipping the "god" we fashioned with our own minds. How do we get to know the Only true God, the God who made everything, our Abba and Father, the God who came to earth and died for us, Jesus,the God who takes up residence in our hearts - the Comforter, Holy Spirit?
BEING BORN FROM ABOVE
In John 3, a man with much "knowledge" of God, a teacher of the Law came to Jesus at night saying you must be a teacher from God because no one could do these things you do Jesus. Nicodemus wanted to know how to have eternal life? Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”5 Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” In order to see God, know God, one must be born from above. Nicodemus asked a good question, "How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus was thinking of being born in the flesh. Jesus was talking about being born in the spirit. "BELIEVE" It is important to know the one we believe in or it would just be mental assent to a concept (like Jesus existed and died) or just believe in a concept of who we think Jesus is or who someone told us he is or just believing because we prayed, we believe.
The word "believe" in this and many verses, is the verb pisteuo derived from the noun pistis meaning "faith, assurance, belief". But a verb is an action word. The usage of the word pisteou means "commit unto, commit to (one's) trust, be committed unto, be put in trust with, be committed to one's trust." We need to repent for the Kingdom of God is here. Repent means complete turn in mind and heart from our ways and idols and see and agree with God that He is who He says He is and not who we think He is.
The diagram below is something I saw in my early twenties. Man on one side and God on the other. We are separated from God. We are born with inherited sin basically because of the fall of Adam and Eve. We also all have gone astray. We want our own way early on rather than God's way. We do all fall short of God's glory. Jesus Christ came and provided a bridge from man to God so that we could have a relationship with Him again. The cross did bridge the gap. We deserved death but we inherited God's life instead. His blood brought us life here and now and for eternity and our standing before Him is as white as snow because of Jesus' righteousness and not our own. We call on the name of Jesus, God answers our cries. God puts His spirit inside of us and we grow from inside out. We cannot confuse outer change with inner rebirth. We can live in confidence without shame and guilt because In Christ, we have confidence to go boldly before the throne. We overcome because the Overcoming God lives inside of us.
1 John 5:5 who is he who is overcoming the world, if not he who is believing that Jesus is the Son of God? (YLT)
Romans Road:
We may be wonder, if we are Christians, why spend so much time on what we already know about the Cross. I don't think we ever get beyond the cross. The cross should be what we are looking at daily. At the cross, all was finished. Sometimes we don't get the spiritual significance of the cross. We hear it and we know as some fact that we heard. Sometimes, we try hard to believe and trust and think we do because of our mental agreement, but do we understand? How do we have spiritual understanding? How does Jesus take the scales off the eyes to see as he did for Paul in Acts 6 (conversion of Paul). A prayer does not save you. Jesus does. We are saved by faith through grace not of our own works. How do we know God then? Once we "believe" - committed to, relationship with then God imparts His wisdom through the spirit. Remember, this wisdom is not understood by the natural man. God says:
1 Corinthians 2:10 But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.13 These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy[d] Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 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. 15 But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. 16 For “who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?”[e]But we have the mind of Christ.
We children of God receive the SPIRIT OF GOD and not the spirit of this world so we might know the things God has freely given us. We are then sealed by the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 1:12That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. 13In whom you also trusted, after that you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that you believed, you were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, 14Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of his glory. I recommend reading all of Ephesians 1. You are sealed. You have an inheritance - eternal one that cannot be taken.
To have life in the spirit, to Know God,the working of God in you, I recommend Romans 8. One great promise God gave me was Romans 8:16-17 says 16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. It is important to have His Spirit bearing witness with our spirit. Without His Spirit, we would be missing Him. We would be trying to do things apart from Him (this fruit will not endure or last).
He bears witness with our spirit! This is the internal witness. You cannot believe every spirit. You have to test the spirits to see which are of God. See 1 John 4. With God Himself living in you which is the Holy Spirit which reminds you of all Jesus taught and gives you spiritual wisdom, you can obey. You have the power to Obey because of what Jesus accomplished on the cross. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead lives in you - Holy Spirit. (Romans 8:11). You serve an overcomer, a God that has overcome the world and this is why you can endure to the end and finish the race marked out before you.
RUNNING THE RACE WITH HIS WITNESS IN YOU SPURRING YOU ON
The purpose of our race - to Know God. After a whole week of studying with Good Morning Girls - goodmorninggirls.org about being intentionally focused, I am reminded that our focus is on Knowing God and not any earthly goals. We are to know God! To know God takes a commitment and belief. In the above book, God's Names by Sally Michael, we read "Soldiers must be trained so that they can fight well. They must do everything they are told. One way they train is with an obstacle course. An overcomer is someone w ho sees obstacles and does not stop." (pg. 112). God tells us that there will be a great tribulation. There will be much evil and it will seem in the end that Satan is winning. Jesus is coming back on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. He will gather His children. (Matthew 24:29-31).
The focus in all our being and doing is to know God. Know God in every relationship. In every craft, every thing we read, in every thing we play, in every conversation, we can ask God to know Him more and to have wisdom from above and not earthly wisdom.He is the OVERCOMING GOD and in Him (your being found in His death, burial and resurrection), you will overcome every trial, every obstacle and every pain. He will complete the work He has started in you. Throw off all you love more than God. Throw off all he things you think about.
A great prayer for your family and the family of God in your walk/race before God is: Ephesians 1:15 Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 16 do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, 18 the eyes of your understanding[c] being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power 20 which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.22 And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to behead over all things to the church, 23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
May we all come to know Him more and more each day and to make Him known. Set your eyes on Knowing Him!!!!!
