Friday, May 9, 2014

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT!



Daniel 11:32b

“But the people who know their God will be strong and will resist him {antichrist}.”

The Scriptures teach that the end times will be terrible days.  Societies will crumble, governments will be corrupt, individual freedoms will pass away into history.  Both public and private morality will be a thing of the past.  Does that sound like a world in which you want to live?  You might be saying with me, “Get me off this planet!”

Those days will be terrible; and dependent upon how the Scriptures are interpreted, believers will have to endure at least part of those days.  To a great extent, these things are being experienced today.  Believers are dying for their faith in many parts of the world.  Our leaders care nothing for integrity; they’re power-hungry.  Crime and perverted thinking has become a “disability”, the word “sin” is hardly used or understood, and God’s Name is a swear word.  So, we’re already in the downward spiral that will culminate with antichrist in the holy Temple, forcing the worship of the “abomination of desolation”. (Daniel 9:27, 11:31a, 12:11)  But then, joy of all joys, after that we’ll see the feet of Jesus once again planted on the Mount of Olives!

“But the people who know their God will be strong and resist him.”

Do you know your God?  Do I?  This verse teaches knowledge of God will be our salvation.  And it seems Paul, in Ephesians 1:17 agrees.  He prays for the Ephesians and us with these words:  “… to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God.”  A focus of Jesus’ prayer for believers in John 17 is that we would know the “word of truth”.

The way to know God is two-pronged:  know His Word (read it, pray over it, and meditate upon it), and obey it.  It’s the second one I get stuck on many times.  But head knowledge of the Scriptures isn’t enough!  I need experiential knowledge, I need hands-on knowledge!  

Obedience to God’s Word is the key to knowing Him; and knowing Him will enable me to be strong and resist sin until the end.  It’s like learning any other skill:  read the book, study it, take a test on it, but if the skill isn’t practiced daily, it’s not truly learned!

Father, help me to learn the skill of knowing You
by daily practicing obedience to
Your specific Words to me.  Amen.

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