Tag: know

October 3 – Even Before

“Even before there is a word on my tongue,
 Behold, O LORD, You know it all.” – Psalm 139:4 (NASB)  

King David had superlative understanding of God’s awesome attention to our details. The first verses of Psalm 139 cover how intimately God attends to His own. More than a hint of knowing…God knows the details down to the smallest insignificant bit of our activity. Now, it is likely that many of us live without paying much heed to God’s involvement in our day-to-day. But when a crisis erupts, so do we with prayers begging for God’s attention. We respond as if before we pray, God is elsewhere attending to more important things. But God is Supreme and that means there is no limit to the attention he gives each of us. Here is today’s promise: God know every word that we will utter even before it forms in our brain, before our breath rushes past our voice box, before our tongue, teeth and lips can form the word. Before any thought takes shape to the point it can be cast into the appropriate word, God knows what it is going to be.  Even before…God knows every word so He knows every thought that passes through our head and comes out our mouth. Friends, this is God’s superlative knowledge. 

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July 3 – What We Long For


“…that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and (the) fellowship of his sufferings becoming increasingly conformed to his death if only I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” – Philippians 3:10-11*

We’re staying with the promises found in Philippians 3:10-11. All who have accepted by faith the righteousness of Christ imputed to our account will experience a longing to know Him, to know God who has made us righteous in Christ. That desire is a reason we have been given the faith and gift of Christ’s work on the cross. Paul says that he longs for an ever-increasing supply of the power that proceeds from the risen and exalted Savior. When the Father raised the Son he thereby proved his acceptance of the ransom paid by Christ as full satisfaction for our sin. Yet we want more. More of the power which comes only from Christ’s resurrection. Like Paul we long to know and participate more and more fully in even the reproaches and afflictions of his Lord and Savior. Paul confesses that sharing in Christ sufferings results in us increasingly conforming to Christ’s death (see Romans 6:4-11). Paul stresses a longing and a striving to be raised completely above sin and selfishness, so that he can be a most effective representative for the salvation of men to the glory of God. But there is more in verses 12-14 next.

*(Translation from: William Hendriksen and Simon J. Kistemaker, Exposition of Philippians, New Testament Commentary, (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1953–2001), 5:169.)

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May 26 –Hears, Knows, Follows


“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me;” John 10:27 (NASB)


One of the many things Jesus spoke of Himself to help people understand His mission was that He was the Good Shepherd. It was very common in that day and people knew how important a shepherd’s job was. Today’s verse are words spoken by Jesus and recorded in the Gospel of John. We believe that everyone who believes in Jesus as Savior enters into the relationship pictured in this verse. What we mean is that by believing in Jesus we become one of his flocks and we can think of Him as our shepherd. Jesus said in our verse that His sheep listen to His voice. This means that He is speaking to us. He is not just up in heaven and far away. He knows us and is talking to us right now. It also reminds us that we should be listening to hear our Lord speaking to us and following what He is telling us. This is a wonderful provision. Jesus has thoughts to share with us. We don’t have to go through a day without hearing His voice in our spirit. Let’s be sure we’re within hearing range so that we can hear Him today.

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March 3 – Whom To Know

“Then Jesus cried out in the temple, teaching and saying, “You both know Me and know where I am from; and I have not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know. “I know Him, because I am from Him, and He sent Me.” – John 7:28-29 (NASB)

It was not unusual when Jesus was on this earth and during His ministry, He would speak to individuals and to crowds. Without public address systems to amplify, depending on those listening, Jesus would speak loudly enough for all to hear. In this instance Jesus “cries out,” He speaks loudly to the people in the Temple. They thought they knew Jesus and where He was from. But they did not. He sarcastically affirms their assumption. Jesus’ point is that contrary to what the crowds thought, they really had no true understanding of who He was. They knew Him in the earthly sense, but not in the spiritual sense, because they didn’t know God either. Our promise in this passage is that if we truly know God we know Jesus. And, if we know Jesus, then we know God for Jesus came from and was sent by God that we may know Him and receive forgiveness and salvation. Some may think they are acutely perceptive and spiritually oriented, but if they do not accept Jesus, it reveals their spiritual bankruptcy. We rejoice that we do know God because we have believed in Jesus, the Son of God, our Lord and Savior. 

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January 24 – Taught by God

“He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.” John 16:14 (NIV)

During the last hours that Jesus was with His disciples before His death on the cross, He revealed many things to them. Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit and revealed what the Holy Spirit would do for them. The disciples had walked and lived with Jesus for about three years. Yet, there was much they needed to understand about Him. Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would come and live within them and teach them more to help them understand their Lord Jesus more fully. He would also bring to their remembrance and understanding of all that they had experienced with Him. That is our promise and that is what the Holy Spirit is doing in our lives too. Through some New Testament inspired by the Holy Spirit we learn of Jesus. Actually how else would we really know Him since we’ve never seen Him with our eyes or heard him with our ears. When the Holy Spirit teaches us about Jesus, He becomes glorious to us. Is Jesus a person of glory to you? If He is becoming more and more glorious it’s because the Holy Spirit is teaching you.

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What is the glory of God?

The glory of God is not an easy thing to describe or define and there are many facets of it.  John Piper says this: “…the glory of God is the manifest beauty of his holiness. It is the going public of his holiness.” And again John Piper says:  “The glory of God is the infinite beauty and greatness of God’s manifold perfections. The infinite beauty—and I am focusing on the manifestation of his character and his worth and his attributes — all of his perfections and greatness are beautiful as they are seen, and there are many of them. That is why I use the word manifold.”  https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/what-is-god-s-glory

December 21 – How We Kno

“I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.” – John 10:11 (NASB)
“I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.” John 10:15 (NASB

Shepherds worked very difficult jobs. Sheep were important to the lives and the livelihood of sheep owners and an important industry. Finding a good shepherd, one that could be trusted, was not always easy. Here, Jesus declares himself the Good Shepherd. A strict more literal translation is “I am the shepherd, the good one.” A good shepherd would be willing to hazard his all for the sheep. King David was a shepherd who risked his life to protect the sheep from wild predators. A shepherd may, indeed, risk his life in the defense of his sheep (1 Samuel. 17:34–36), but he does not really lay down his life as a voluntary sacrifice. But our Good Shepherd has a different relationship than a hired shepherd. To save His sheep, the Good Shepherd sacrificed his life so that they can live. Jesus doubles this promise and He did lay down His life for the sheep because He knows each intimately by name and they know and follow Him. His sheep know him in the same way as God the Father and God the Son know each other for they are one. Perhaps difficult to understand, it is His promise to us.

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 November 21 – Three Power Words

“And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” 1 John 4:16 (NIV) 

Three of the most comforting and encouraging words ever, “God is love.” We know it yet we don’t always understand it. One of the many great truths revealed to us in the Bible is God’s love for us. The writer of these words in our verse today is the Apostle John. John knew of God’s love and he had experienced it as he walked and talked with Jesus. He had seen Jesus heal sick, raise the dead and he had seen Jesus weep. He also watched Jesus die as he was nailed to the executioners cross. He saw the resurrected Jesus and he saw Jesus rise up into heaven. John knew God’s love and he relied on it. We today also know God’s love because we have believed that Jesus died for us, rose again to new life and accepted him as our Savior and Lord. We experience His love in our lives and we depend on Him each day because we know how He loves us with a perfect love. We live in the love of God and God lives in us. A wonderful and encouraging promise we can depend upon to be true. Be thankful and rejoice!

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August 22 – By God’s Love We Are…

“See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.” – 1 John 3:1 (NASB)

What a wonderful promise of hope we have today. It is something to think about and rejoice in. The Apostle John just bursts out this good news as he introduces to all readers why our hope is a sure thing. Our hope as believers in Jesus Christ is strengthened by the fact that God initiated his salvation out of His love for us. There is no other way for any person to be called a child of God. This is a promise and as one said “We who are in Christ are there because God took us out of the world and put us in Christ. But there is another promise here and that is the world we live in, that which is not abiding in Christ or following His commandments does not really know us. The world can’t figure out how or why a person is a Christian abiding in Christ because they do not know Christ. For that reason we are to not love the world or try to look like the world. Let’s be thankful that God has called us His children and such we are because of the Love He has for us.

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July 13 – To Know, To Obey


“If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.” – John 13:17 (NASB)

A favorite quote is “It’s always better to know than not know.” That sort of flies in the face of another quote of lesser quality, “What they don’t know won’t hurt them.” Well, not knowing some things or overlooking them might result in loss. What things you might ask? Anything we know we should do in obedience to God. There should be no delay is what Jesus was saying to his disciples at the last meal they had together before His arrest, suffering and crucifixion. It happened to be the Passover meal and Jesus knew the time had come for Him to go through all that it was going to take to provide salvation to all who were lost in their sin. Phony obedience is a state of mind in which we work up occasions to sacrifice ourselves; zeal is mistaken for thoughtfulness. It is easier to sacrifice ourself than to fulfil our spiritual purpose. (Romans 12:1–2) As the prophet Samuel said to the disobedient King Saul, “To obey is better than sacrifice.” (1 Samuel 15:22) The promise we have today is that joy is always tied to obedience to God’s revealed Word..

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