Knowing Him

When I was little, my dad used to sing to my brother and me before bed.  Sometimes he would have his guitar, too, but not always.  The songs he played and sang are still songs I love to hear, even the goofy ones.  He often played/sang "Amazing Grace," "I Come to the Garden Alone (In the Garden)," "Matthew (John Denver)," "Country Roads (John Denver)," "Rocky Mountain High (John Denver)," part of "Feeling Groovy," "Blind Man (Sat By the Road)," "Jesus Loves Me," "Battle Hymn of the Republic," and "I Want to Know You, Lord."

Yesterday, for the first time, though I'd always liked the song, I added "I Want to Know You, Lord" to my list of favorite songs.

I want to know You, Lord
Much more than I do
I want to know You, Lord
Much more than I do
Learn to seek Your face
And the knowledge of Your grace
I want to know You more

It wasn't because I heard it again.  It was because of Matthew 24:23-27 which warns about false Christs.

I got to thinking about how to identify false Christs.  I thought of John 10:1-18 which is all about Jesus, the Good Shepherd vs. False Shepherds.  I flipped over there and found this:

“1 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber. 2 But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.”

I realized it all comes down to knowing Jesus.  It comes down to knowing His voice so well that no imitation can fool us.  It also comes down to knowing His ways and His teaching so well that anything not in harmony with them just seems wrong.  That is what the next section of John 10 was about:

"7 So Jesus said to them again, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. 9 I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and [a]have it abundantly.

11 “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. 12 He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, 15 even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd. 17 For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. 18 No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.”

It's all about knowing Him.  Jeremiah 9 says that no one should boast of their might or riches or wisdom, but that, if anyone is going to boast, he should boast in the fact that he knows God and His ways.  Second Peter 1 says that we have everything we need for life and Godliness THROUGH the knowledge of Him Who called us by His own glory and grace.  Jesus, while praying to His Father, in John 17, says that the Father gave Him power to give eternal life to those He chose - and that eternal life is to know God.

Friends, WE MUST KNOW HIM!

This modern church of ours is asleep, seemingly unaware of God's priorities and not caring that the world around them is perishing in sin or that false teaching is creeping into the church.  Why?  It doesn't KNOW HIM to the extent that it makes a change in the lives of its people.  If you don't know someone, you don't know how they think or what they care about.  If you don't love them enough, even if you do know what they want, you don't care.  But if you know this Jesus, this Shepherd that laid down His life for the sheep, you WILL love Him and it WILL change you.

Know Jesus!  Know Him!  Know His voice!  Know His truth!  Know His love!  Know His priorities!  Don't be content with life as always.  Know Him enough that you really love Him.  Know Him enough that it changes you.  Love Him enough that you live for His priorities.

Yes, that will make you look weird to the rest of the world and much of the church.  But does it matter?  This life we live here is a tiny blip on the face of eternity.  We have eternity with God to look forward to.  Can't we stand being different and getting weird looks since we look toward a heavenly city?  Hasn't He called us to that?

Heb. 11:13-16
13 All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. 15 And indeed if they had been [l]thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not [m]ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.

Heb. 13:13-14
13 So, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach. 14 For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come.

Paul believed nothing was worth as much as knowing God.  He said in Philippians 3:

"7 But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of [d]knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, 9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; 11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead."

Is anything worth missing that?  Please, please, please - don't miss out on knowing Him - really knowing Him - so that you know His voice and aren't deceived, so that you have eternal life, so that you live for His heavenly Kingdom.

Make that old song my dad sang to me the prayer of your heart.


I want to know You, Lord
Much more than I do
I want to know You, Lord
Much more than I do
Learn to seek Your face
And the knowledge of Your grace
I want to know You more

~M.

The Face in the Mirror

[Just as a side-note, I wanted to clarify a statement in my previous post.  When I said, "I must write," I did not mean I am/was being forced to do so.  I meant that I just have to do it - like a horse has to neigh and a zebra has to have stripes.  It's part of who I am. :) ]
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“But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.  For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was.  But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man shall be blessed in what he does.” ~ James 1:22-25

The great wonder of Christianity is that, in giving up ourselves to Christ, we become something infinitely better than what we were before.  God asks us for ourselves and gives us Himself.  He asks for the sinful person and offers His holiness in return.

Why He would want our sinful selves is beyond me.  Ephesians 2 says that you and I were, “dead in [our] trespasses and sins, in which [we] formerly walked according to the course of this world…”  (Ephesian 2:1-2a)  One, we were dead.  Dead things are nasty, rotting, and stinking.  Two, we weren’t just dead, we were dead in sin, the antithesis of the holiness of God.  Three, we walked according to the ways of the world – and friendship with the world, James 4 says, is enmity toward God.  Dead, living in complete opposition to God’s nature, and at war with Him.  And He offered His righteousness in return for our deadness and sin and surrender.  Why?  I don’t know.  But He did.

When we looked in a spiritual mirror before surrendering ourselves to Him, we saw corruption and evil.  That was the face in the mirror.  But with our surrender, we were given a new face – the face of Christ.  2 Corinthians puts it like this: “Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold new things have come.”

But the difficulty is this: We looked into the mirror for so long, seeing corruption, that this new man is unfamiliar and remembering his characteristics is difficult.  It isn’t as if we can memorize a physical description.  He isn’t physical.  In that sense, we are the same.  How, then, does one see this new creature, this new face?

James 1 says we are to look into God’s perfect law of liberty.  Why?  The Law of liberty is the reflection of God’s nature.  In looking at this law we see God’s attributes.  And “all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” (Galatians 3:27)  Christ’s righteousness is given to us and His righteousness can be seen in the perfect Word and ways of God.

We are told to look into a mirror and memorize our new selves, so that we will remember who we are since we were given a new face, based in the nature and character of God.  What better place to find what our new nature is to be than in the very thoughts and actions of God, whose righteousness we have been given?

You have a new face.  In place of your dead sinfulness, Jesus gave you His perfect face.  But you must live by that new face and the only way to do that is by learning what that new face is like.  In the perfect word of God we see a reflection of His face.  When we look into it – wonder of wonders – by grace, the face of Christ looks back at us.  Oh that we may live in a manner worthy of that face!

~M.