SUN 29/3/15 TONY LING (PART 2)
Proverbs 30:3-4
I have not learned wisdom, nor have I attained to the knowledge of the Holy One.
Who has gone up to heaven and come down?
Whose hands have gathered up the wind?
Who has wrapped up the waters in a cloak?
Who has established all the ends of the earth?
What is his name, and what is the name of his son?
Surely you know!
The question is 'Who are you, Lord?' In our day when the voice of atheism shouts loudly we need to be a people who know the answer. We know, based on our experience, based on our growing and deepening relationship with him that there is a God. We don't just know about him we are confident that we know him.
When we are young we think we know everything that there is to know. As the years pass, now we are embarassed by our lack of knowledge but what we do have is a much greater hunger to know God better. Saul when he was stopped on the road to Damascus asked, 'Who are you, Lord?' and Jesus broke into his life. Years later with a Christian CV that many would envy he talks about everything of any worth in his past being rubbish compared to knowing Jesus. At that stage in his walk with Jesus he says he wants to know him:
I want to know Christ – yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Philippians 3:10-11
He prayed that the Ephesians might know Jesus better. Whatever our experience of God there is always more to learn, more to reach for.
I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. 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. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people. Ephesians 1:16-18
I have not learned wisdom, nor have I attained to the knowledge of the Holy One.Who has gone up to heaven and come down?
Whose hands have gathered up the wind?
Who has wrapped up the waters in a cloak?
Who has established all the ends of the earth?
What is his name, and what is the name of his son?
Surely you know!
The question is 'Who are you, Lord?' In our day when the voice of atheism shouts loudly we need to be a people who know the answer. We know, based on our experience, based on our growing and deepening relationship with him that there is a God. We don't just know about him we are confident that we know him.
When we are young we think we know everything that there is to know. As the years pass, now we are embarassed by our lack of knowledge but what we do have is a much greater hunger to know God better. Saul when he was stopped on the road to Damascus asked, 'Who are you, Lord?' and Jesus broke into his life. Years later with a Christian CV that many would envy he talks about everything of any worth in his past being rubbish compared to knowing Jesus. At that stage in his walk with Jesus he says he wants to know him:
I want to know Christ – yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Philippians 3:10-11
He prayed that the Ephesians might know Jesus better. Whatever our experience of God there is always more to learn, more to reach for.
I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. 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. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people. Ephesians 1:16-18
