9-14-2019 Now I know You for Myself

Job 42:5

(Job says to God) I have heard about you by hearing through the ear but now, my eye has seen You.

Today, in church, we “hear” about God all the time.  We hear about Him from the pulpits.  We hear about Him in Sunday School or church bible studies.  We hear about Him from our friends in the church and even those outside the church.  We even read about Him in our bibles.  Despite all the world’s attempt to take God out of our awareness, we still hear about God or see His works all around us.  We even do many necessary tasks needed in the church, knowing God will smile upon our efforts.  Yet, in all this awareness, learning and doing, how many of us have truly discovered a personal relationship with the creator of all things?  How many of us continue to learn but never come to understand the truth (2 Tim. 3:7)?

Ezekiel 37:12-14

Prophecy and say “Thus says the Lord God. behold my people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves and bring you into the land of Israel.

You will know that I am the Lord because I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of those graves.

And I shall put my Spirit in you and you shall live and I will place you in your own land.  Then you will know that I the Lord have said it and done it.  Thus says the Lord.”

The church has been “sleeping” far too long.   Even in service to Him.  Father is bringing us up out of our graves – our living a comfortable life, our complacency, our listlessness.  Israel represents today’s church.  The Spirit of God will infill us as never before and living in our own land is living in the kingdom of God, even though we are still here on planet earth.  Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matt. 6:10).  This means other people seeing the kingdom of God operating in us and through us because we have come to know God - personally.

Hebrews 8:10-12

This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord.  I will put My laws into their minds and write them in their hearts.  I will be a God to them and they my people.

Every man will not have to teach his neighbor nor his brother to know the Lord for they all shall know Me, from the least to the greatest.

For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and I will no longer remember their sins and iniquities.

God’s law of LOVE will become a viable, living part of our lives.  We won’t just know about God’s love, it will be a living part of our lives.  The benefits?  Our sins will be forgotten. 

God gave Adam and Eve a covenant by putting them in the garden to take care of it (Gen. 1:27-31, Gen. 2:7-7-9).

God made a covenant with Abraham) by blessing Him and giving him a promise to bless the world through his descendants (Gen. 22:15-18).

God made a covenant with Moses on Mt. Sinai, the Ten Commandments, a guide for living for God, in His love (Exod. 20:1-17).

And Father is making a covenant with us by giving us His Spirit so we can be a true reflection, to the world, of His love (John 13:34-35).  When we keep His commandments we become one with Him (John 17:21-23) because we are living in His commandment, through the power of the Holy Ghost (John 14:15-17), which is to love for, God is love (1 John 4:7-15).

John 17:14-26

(Jesus speaking) I have given them Your Word and the world has hated them because they are not of this world, even as I am not of this world

I don’t pray that You should take them out of the world but that You keep them from evil.

            They are not of this world, even as I am not of this world.

Even though we are in the world, we aren’t a part of it.  That is we don’t emulate or copy worldly values.  Jesus asks Father’s protection for us so we can help the world understand His love.  Paul desired to be in heaven but he had a job to do here on planet earth (Phil. 1:21-24).

            Sanctify them through Your truth, Your Word is truth.

            Even as You have sent Me into the world, I send them into the world. 

            For their sakes I sanctify Myself that they may also be sanctified through truth.

Neither do I pray for these alone but for all who would believe on Me through Your Word.

Jesus tells us that the word of God is truth.  As He has sends us into the world, Jesus was set apart so that we may be set apart to demonstrate the positive contrast to the world’s ways through God’s love. It is for us today and until He calls us home.

That they all may be one, as You Father are in Me and I in You that they may also be one in us, that the world may believe that You have sent Me.

And the glory which You gave me, I have given to them that they may be one, even as we are one.

I in them and You in me, that they may be made perfect in one that the world may know that You have sent Me and have loved them as You have loved Me.

Jesus shares how “one” we need to be with Him and our Father so we can bring that love to the world.

Father, I also desire that they, whom You have given Me, may behold My glory which You have given Me.  You loved Me before the foundation of the World.

O, righteous Father, the world hasn’t known you but I have known You and these whom You 

have sent Me have known.

I have declared Your name to them and will declare it that the love with which You have loved Me may be in them and I in them.

Jesus is God (John 1:1) so He would that the love of God would fully envelope our lives.  We achieve this through our personal relationship with Father, which He describes here.  We can discover the glory of God through our own prayer life.  The closer we walk with God, the more focused our prayers.  Father will reveal Himself to us.  We may not see Him, but we will know that He is surely with us.

Job discovered Father on a personal level – I have seen You with my own eyes – and then Job was sent to bring his friends to repentance. 

How many personal encounters do we need to talk about?  Father made a covenant with Adam and Eve, Abraham and Moses.  Do we mention Jesus calling the original twelve disciples or those disciples who came through His ministry.  Do we need to talk about Saul (Paul) on the road to Damascus.  Each of these, Jesus brought into a personal relationship with Himself.  Father brings us into a personal relationship with Himself so we can go into the world and bring others into that same ‘one on one’ relationship with the one, true living God, assuring their place in eternity, too.  That relationship is strengthened as we read scripture (bible) and talk with Him (pray).

As Jesus declared that He lost none Father gave Him (save the traitor, Judas) (John 17:12).  Likewise, Father desires that none should perish (2 Peter 3:9).  Nobody, including you and me!

The field (earth) is already set for the harvest (John 4:35).  All we need now is the ‘latter rain’ (https://www.oneforisrael.org/bible-based-teaching-from-israel/the-former-latter-rains-in-israel/ & Joel 2:23) .  The Hebrew word used for latter rain is malsqowsh (4456), the spring rain, which, in 

Israel, means the rains that ripen a crop for harvest.

Father is preparing His church to be the latter rain to the church (which has strayed) and to the world.  That we may bring those final drops of living water ripening and preparing the crop for harvest.  That means salvation (for the world) or getting back on the right track (for the church), so all might be ready to go ‘home’ when that time does come.  Take care of our own house first (1 Tim. 5:8) so we can more effectively help others.

Should the church not really know God on a personal level, have a solid relationship with Him, how can we help others to have a meaningful relationship with Him?

God IS about relationships, mano e mano, or (not to be selective) womano e womano.  We need to understand the bible as the Holy Spirit reveals, apply what we learn into our own lives AND learn how to talk with God.  I said ‘with’, not ‘at’.  That means a two way conversation.  I talk, then I zip my lip and listen.  You ask ‘how does God speak to me?  Ever ask God something and then a huge urge to go look in the bible?  Father may send another person to us who will speak according to the Word of God.  He may even show us something that’s around us and it will click ‘that’s the answer!  Or, He may speak directly to our hearts, which is what He prefers.  So don’t be surprised if this carries on as a conversation as you might have with a friend.  After all, God is not just looking for people to come into His kingdom.  He looking for a whole bunch of friends.

Amen