Monday, July 30, 2018

Know your God

 “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.”

-    Ephesians 1:17

One of the best things we can pray for each other, and for ourselves, is that we might better know God. The Holy Spirit helps us better know God (1 Cor. 2), worship God (John 4), and speak to God (Rom. 8). Let's ask God to use his Spirit to help us know him, not just know about him. God is not only the Almighty Creator of all things; he is also our Father who cares about us deeply.

Putting It in Context

You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David: “‘Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? - Acts 4:25

The disciples proclaimed that what was happening in their day was what God had spoken through his servant David by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The violence and opposition that the early followers of Jesus were facing were not a surprise. They were expected. They were anticipated. They were prophesied years earlier by King David in Psalm 2. What's more, this message of the Holy Spirit was God's reminder that the opposition they faced would fail! Jesus, God's anointed, would lead God's people to triumph.

The efforts of the nations and the rulers to stop the cause of Christ were — and still are — futile. And God had spoken this truth a thousand years earlier, through his servant David by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit — the same Holy Spirit who lived within each of those who were following Jesus and who also lives within each of us who follow him!

Thought

"The Jews would not willingly tread upon the smallest piece of paper in their way, but took it up; for possibly, they say, the name of God may be on it. Though there was a little superstition in this, yet truly there is nothing but good religion in it, if we apply it to men. Trample not on any; there may be some work of grace there, that thou knowest not of. The name of God may be written upon that soul thou treadest on; it may be a soul that Christ thought so much of, as to give His precious blood for it; therefore despise it not." - S. T. Coleridge

[Message No: 6433]

No comments:

Post a Comment

Post a Comment