Who Do You Know?

Image by Seth0s, from Pixabay

Psalm 95 is attributed to King David, according to Hebrews 4:7.  In the chronological Bible I'm reading through this year, though, Psalm 95 is placed after Numbers 16, because the human subjects of the psalm are the wandering Hebrews.  The entire psalm is magnificent, but we are focusing today on verse 10.  It is the wooden stake through the heart.  God is speaking...

For forty years I was disgusted with that generation;

I said "They are a people whose hearts go astray,

and they do not know my ways"

Psalm 95:10 CSB

Taking the stories of the Hebrew people as a whole, they demonstrate the inability of man to follow God.  Remember, these people had God's favor, and God's Spirit interacted with many of their leaders.  But, their relationship with their God was vastly different from that of today's Christian.
God uses the Old Testament to show us that setting out a set of rules for people to follow does not produce holiness.  Over and over and over again, we see the Hebrew people failing God's tests.
The verse above refers to their repeated failures, the most egregious one being refusing to depend on God's power to bring them into the Promised Land.  This was the failure that earned them an additional 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.  God was so angry at their lack of faith and obedience that he refused to allow any adult male over 20 years of age to enter Canaan on that first approach.  Exceptions were Caleb and Joshua, two members of the scouting team who DID take God at His word, and who were highly vexed their fellow scouts were whimpering and cowering in fear.

It is easy to look at the Hebrew people and criticize.
For no other people group in human history had God "shown up and shown out" in so great a manner.
This was the generation that:

• saw 10 horrific plagues on the Egyptian people, plagues the Israelites were delivered from
• saw the parting of the Red Sea
• saw God miraculously provide for them water and manna in the desert
• saw God's holiness and might demonstrated at Mt. Sinai
• saw the ground open up and swallow entire families of rebellious Levites
• saw the pillar of fire by night, and the cloud of God's Shekinah glory by day.

Yet, God says, "they do not know my ways".  They had SEEN, but they did not KNOW.
And, because they did not truly know God, their hearts went astray.

Godly obedience flows from a heart that knows God, that has a real, personal relationship with God.
In this verse, the Hebrew word for "know" is יָדְע֥וּ yā-ḏə-‘ū
In the New Testament, the Greek word most closely approximating this is ἐπιγνώσει.
It is this knowing and this relationship Paul speaks of so eloquently in Ephesians 1:17-19.

16I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, 17that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might 

This is a prayer I pray over my sons frequently.  See, Paul says that if you truly know God, He can through that personal relationship - -

• give true wisdom and reveal things the unsaved (the spiritually dead) cannot understand
• enable the "eyes of our heart" to truly see
• that by embracing our calling from Him, we can know hope (true assurance) for eternity
• that we may realize how truly rich we are, having His glorious inheritance
• that we may better understand the scope of His power, that same "immeasurable greatness" that raises the dead, Jesus Christ being the first to be raised in His new kingdom.

In this world of human interactions, a well-known saying is: "It's not what you know; it's who you know."  The meaning for this world is that you get where you are going through relationships with others who can help you.  Smart, savvy people build relationships and help others as they are seeking to advance themselves.  Then, when they need help too, they have resources.  While that adage often holds to be true, it merely describes human-to-human relationships.  A far greater, much deeper meaning exists.
I truly believe this is the most important aspect of being human.

Despite all that Almighty God had done for His people, their relationship with Him was totally "quid pro quo" - - I will worship you if you behave and perform for me and do things my way".

I thank God I live in the age of grace, the Church age, where how we can know God is centered in our belief in, and relationship with, His Son, the Savior, Jesus Christ.  How is your relationship with Jesus?  Do you truly know Him?

If not, I urge you to come to know Him today.  I've been writing this blog for nearly six years.  In the 6th post I ever wrote, (ironically, it was on Independence Day 2014), I shared about coming to know Jesus.  Knowing Him really IS the main thing.

https://resplendentdaughter.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-main-thing.html