Needing to know (revisited)
John 3:10 Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you not a teacher of Israel and do not know these things?”
This morning I have so much on my mind. I began reading again in the Gospel of John, and I was stopped in my tracks at this scripture. Nicodemus had come to Christ secretly at night to talk to Him. He wanted to know more, Christ was tugging at his Pharisaical heart. His head knowledge was wanting and needing some heart knowledge. He was responding to that tug on his heart. But what stopped me was the weight of Christ response to him above. I share my faith daily here, and I have many things I do not know or understand; I am in the process of coming to know these things and desiring to share my journey with you. All this is to encourage you to join me and develop your own journey in seeking Him every day yourself.
I have been reflecting back on my life in my devo’s from the past year recently. It seems almost fitting to share the devo from a year ago today; from the title alone.
25 Aug 2012
Needing to know
Philippians 4:11-13 Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
I sat out in the cool morning air in the peace of a quiet early Saturday morning and talked to God. I was praying about “needing to know” on many things, and one really big thing. I guess I was wanting the stars to align in my own personal billboard message from God. I came in and researched “need to know” in the Bible and came upon the scriptures above. Paul was speaking of contentment wherever Christ had him for the day. There comes a point in your growth that you begin to understand those scriptures and God’s Sovereignty, or control over your life.
But there is also moving to the next steps in obedience, or acts of faith in doing so. Oswald Chambers ‘My Utmost for His Highest’ spoke directly to it this morning. “We never know the joy of self-sacrifice until we abandon in every particular. Self-surrender is the most difficult thing – I will if…I Oh, well, I suppose I must devote my life to God. There is none of the joy of self-sacrifice in that.” Christ speaks of those sacrifices and steps of faith repeatedly in the Gospels. Matthew 16:24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” Deny yourself simply means putting Christ first. First in all things, period. Our selfish, sinful nature constantly battles with these things.
I am a ‘thinker/planner’ and have repeatedly been accused of ‘thinking things to death’. As part of the management of a company, it is my responsibility to think steps ahead, and to be planning for those steps to come. Christ calls us to release that planning and control to Him in the denying of ourselves as in Matthew 16. Chambers speaks of the joy, or lack thereof in that abandonment. If you too are struggling in areas of your life, and ‘needing to know’, you must seek God and His Word for the answers, or you may be leaning on your own understanding; far inferior to the Creator and Sovereign ruler of the universe and your life.
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