I Thought I Knew

Growing up in a pastor’s home I vowed I would not be a clergyman, but my dad really wanted me to go at least one year to what then was called a Bible college.  A Bible college structured their classes to focus primarily on preparing a variety of pastors, missionaries or para-church ministers.  I did NOT want to end up in any of those careers.  I went to the Bible college but limited my classes to those relating to a music major with a Psychology minor.  However, I received a sizable scholarship after my first year, so I continued with classes strictly related to my chosen major and minor.  Just so you know, I had a powerful encounter with God in which I negotiated with Him to become a music and youth pastor but NOT preach.  That encounter motivated me to slightly redirect my studies.  

With that background, after Connie and I married, planned for our first child and based on classes I had taken in child Psychology, etc., I thought I knew how to raise a child so all was well.  Not long after our first daughter arrived, I realized how little I knew about being a father!  Experiencing parenthood awakened a desperate need to seek the wisdom of parents who had real-time experience being one.  The same sobering surprise came after serving for 10 years as a staff pastor then becoming a senior pastor where I was forced to preach!  I’m sure you have experienced that same kind of wake-up call after taking on a responsibility you had totally misjudged.

Scriptures are filled with descriptive verses of God’s character and ways.  A person can read these accounts and believe them to be true about God but don’t misjudge your very limited understanding of who He really is.  The Jewish religious leaders had graduate level knowledge of scripture and God, yet Jesus said you search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me!  Yet you refuse to come to me to receive this life (John 5:39-40, (NLT2).  They obviously were experiencing spiritual blindness to truth.

Based upon Jesus’ first-hand experience He prayed O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know [experientially know] you, and these know that you have sent me (John 17:25, ESV)  He also said, For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life [the Greek word is also translated quickens] to whom he will (John 5:21, ESV)  This quickening brings with it experiential knowledge in contrast to head knowledge.  Ezekiel clarifies the results of this experiential knowledge as the Spirit motivating a person to be careful to obey God’s rules and decrees.  Paul describes this experiential knowledge of God saying, for his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children (Romans 8:16, NLT2).  This results in having an exceptional deep peace and joy in that relationship.  This is in contrast to the Jewish leaders referred to earlier whose head knowledge alone left them harsh and demanding of others. Today is Easter, the day when the very same spirit that quickened Jesus’ body to come out of the grave, providing us a great model of how transforming His Spirit’s quickening can affect a person’s life today.  It brings hope to the hopeless, life to the spiritual zombies (walking dead), peace to those struggling with anxiety and the incredible list could go on and on.   It is available to whomever will acknowledge the gentle nudging within to totally surrender the control of their life to the God who created them.  Today we understand how viruses, like the coronavirus, can invisibly be spread by being close to or touching someone.  Imagine how the Spirit desires to invisibly pass on His quickening power through your connection with those with whom you share relationship.  Let’s confidently live His life around those we encounter praying the Spirit will open their spiritual eyes to the life they could come to enjoy.  

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