acknowledging & knowing

Having just an awareness of Christ and living contrary to His standards wasn’t His original idea

Acknowledgement and knowing have a stark contrast yet in the context of God, we think there is a grey area. Many people, if not the majority, acknowledge there is a God and know that He most likely exists. However, only a few, know Him in the ways He desires for us to know Him. The nature of God carries an infiniteness that might not permit us to ever fully know Him in His entirety. Nonetheless, there is a knowing He desires that is initiated by submission and commitment. And that’s where many of us get it wrong.

We think that just acknowledging him warrants us the privileges the Bible spells out: eternal life in heaven. Unfortunately, it was not designed that way.

God desires something greater than an acknowledgement. He desires a knowing where there is a continuous unveiling of His nature, further establishing a newly birthed relationship between Him and His creation.

And sometimes I think we think that we do God a favour when we decide to take steps to acknowledge Him more in our lives. First of all, the acknowledgement is below the bare minimum in His curriculum. Secondly, knowing God beyond the superficialities is for your good. Whether we decide to commit our lives to God or not, He remains God. Our commitment and His sovereignty are mutually exclusive. However, there is a certain dimension of defeat and disadvantage one places oneself in when disconnected from the Lord.

One thing we must always bear in mind is that the devil exists. Satan is real and he hates everybody. His goal is to destroy everything and everyone. There is One name He cannot oppose and that is the name of Jesus. Those who are committed and submitted to the Lord will constantly find themselves on the upper hand because they have an established communion with the Lord. But the one who just acknowledges God lacks that knowing and that intimacy so defeat is inevitable.   

The point I am driving at is that you cannot just acknowledge God. You are robbing yourself. He did not create you for you to call on Him once in a while and treat Him as some ornament in your life you use to beautify your days but He has no role in the actual construction. No, no He is the author, He is the One who must orchestrate it all. I think it’s blasphemous for us to carry the name of Christ but our lives and conduct display zero commitment to Him and His ways.

Let’s go beyond acknowledging, let’s get to know Him/ on a deeper level

humility

Humility is such a profound trait that I don’t think is spoken about often. One thing I have come to identify is that those who grow in God and advance in their pursuit of Him are humble. To relate with God and properly be intimate with Him, one must be fully humble and delivered from the spirit of self-sufficiency. You must identify your uselessness without God. From there, He reveals His capacity to transform you, make you whole and elevate you.

You will never submit to the purposes of God without humility. You need humility to know God. God doesn’t deal with prideful people. The first step to knowing God is becoming born again (John 3:3), which is essentially accepting Christ as your Lord and personal saviour. To do this, there must be a sense of humility because you identify your inability to save yourself.

Sometimes, we get stuck in our walk with God because we have become proud. Having a humble spirit leads to advancement in your pursuit of God. May the Lord give you a humble spirit and may you desire to always stay humble.

James 4:10

Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.

2 Chronicles 33:12

Now when he was in affliction, he implored the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers,

the blood of Jesus

A few years ago, someone reposted a tweet on their Instagram story. The tweet said something along the lines of Christ has already died and paid the price so I might as well sin.

I mean how can somebody even think of this? Don’t you fear God? Or maybe you don’t know who this Christ is?

Romans 6:6 'We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin.'

Romans 6:1-2 'What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?'

There is a lot this tweet portrays but one thing I’ve noticed is that many people do not understand what the blood of Jesus is. They are ignorant of the power in the blood. Many people, even Christians, have no true knowledge of the saving power of the blood and what having access to the blood does for a mere mortal.

And before I go on, I want everyone reading this to never ever take the blood of Jesus for granted. Ignorance is not cute and makes you look silly.

There is so much I can say about the blood of Jesus but I will present to you four statements about the blood.

1. By the blood of Christ, our sins are forgiven (Hebrews 9:12, 1 John 1:7).

2. By the blood of Christ, an everlasting covenant between God and man is established (1 Corinthians 11:25-26). This covenant is laid out throughout scripture (Jeremiah 31:31-34). In this covenant, we can have intimacy with God and He dwells with us and not necessarily, in a set space. With this covenant, you do not work your way to God, He has done all the work through Christ, His Son. Our job is to believe and then walk on a journey of seeking His face and holiness.

3. By the blood of Christ, we overcome the enemy (Revelation 12:11). The blood of Christ reminds the devil that he has been defeated.

4. By the blood of Christ, our adoption into the family of God is established. Through Christ, God reconciled us back to Himself and therefore we are now children of God. (Ephesians 1:5, Romans 8:15-16)