Morning By Morning #217

The people who know their God
will firmly resist him [the king of the North].

Daniel 11:32

From the pen of Charles Spurgeon:

Every believer understands that to know God is the highest and best form of knowledge. This spiritual knowledge is a great source of strength for the Christian, for it strengthens one’s faith. Believers are often described in the Scriptures as being enlightened and taught by the Lord and are said to have “an anointing from the Holy One” (1 John 2:20). In fact, it is the Spirit’s unique role to “guide [us] into all truth” (John 16:13), and all this is designed to increase and strengthen our faith.

Spiritual knowledge strengthens love as well as faith, for knowledge opens the door, and then through that door we see our Savior. Or, using another analogy, knowledge paints a portrait of Jesus, and seeing Him leads to loving Him, for we cannot love a Christ we do not know at least to some degree. If we know very little of the wonderful qualities of Jesus, what He has done for us, and what He is doing now, we cannot love Him very much. But the more we know Him the more we will love Him.

Spiritual knowledge also strengthens hope, for how can we have hope for something if we do not even know of its existence? Hope may be the lens, but until we have knowledge through instruction, our ignorance blocks that lens and we see nothing whatsoever. Knowledge, however, removes that blockage of ignorance, and when we look through the bright lens, we discern the glory yet to be fully revealed and anticipate it with joyous confidence.

Spiritual knowledge also supplies us with reasons for patience, for how will we have patience until we know something of the sufferings of Christ? Until we can sympathize with Him through suffering, we will never understand the good that comes from it, nor will we understand the good that comes from the correction our heavenly Father sends us.

Plus, there is not a single gift of God’s grace to the Christian which, through the Lord, will not be nurtured and ultimately brought to perfection by holy knowledge. Thus, how important it is that not only we should “grow in…grace” but also in the “knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18)!

From the pen of Jim Reimann:

Many believers often shy away from the term theology. Yet theology simply means “the knowledge of God.” Paul wrote of “the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness” (Titus 1:1), and since Jesus said, “I am…the truth” (John 14:6), we are speaking of “the knowledge of [Jesus] that leads to godliness.”

As we attempt to lead a godly life, many of us tend to focus on a system of “do’s and don’ts,” but if this passage is trustworthy—and all Scripture is—then it is knowing Jesus “that leads to godliness.” This is why Paul, a former Pharisee, no longer stressed the law, but stressed the fulfillment of the law—Jesus. The primary focus of his life was “to know Christ” (Phil. 3:10). And his prayer for other believers was unshakably consistent, for he wrote:

“I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better” (Eph. 1:17).